»this is my beauty, show me yours EP« by Arrial

A fresh artist hailing from the British Island is Arrial, whose demo arrived just about 6 weeks ago. His first release for Autoplate consists of three fine classic guitar songs mixed up with sparse, yet playful and effective electronic elements.

I got my first spanish guitar at the age of 5. No idea what prompted me to want it but it’s been my lifelong companion ever since - even through the years that it spent in its case gathering dust in the corner of an unused room while I fiddled around with synths, samplers and all that gubbins. Eventually I returned to where I started - the sounds of the spanish guitar. Realising that you don’t need to spend hours looking for a brand new sound in the dark recesses of some complex sound module was an epiphany, and I haven’t looked back since. I began recording guitar tunes, layer them, loop them, feed them through malfunctioning effects units and mix them up with various beats. There’s no sound more beautiful than a freshly strung spanish guitar. I love to play the spanish guitar, I love to dance, I live in the city but dream of the sky and of the sea. I am always striving for the feeling of stillness that you get when you are underwater or when you are standing at the edge of a mountain. You can hear this in the tracks mixed in with the tension and claustrophobia inherent in living and working in a hyper-urban environment.

Mar, Revisitar is a reworking of one of my first ever tracks - the first time I realised that you could write a good tune just with a classical guitar and a drum machine. It’s completely pure without a single treatment of the guitar sounds at all. Elements of Chicane, Globo and Happy Mondays intertwine to evoke the insistent, gentle lapping of the sea at your feet in the night- time.

Blank Holiday Monday originated in a melody I love to play and often makes my partner melt. It’s about feeling dazed after a particularly heavy night and lying on a couch, or better still in a hammock, watching the day go by. When just thinking about the night before makes you smile and gives you palpitations and you crave just a few mouthfuls of curry. And then have to lie back down again.

Shiver. That shivering sound comes from my mixer feeding back - maybe it’s warning me off doing any more tracks verging on being rock ballads. Or maybe it was as excited by the melody as I am. Maybe the shiver is what happens when you are waiting for the night bus home. Or maybe it’s that sigh and sudden rush of goosepimples you get when your lover strokes you with a feather.