Steve Lawson - A Crack Where The Light Gets In (2015) [Hi-Res]

Some things change, some things stay the same. Every since I started playing solo, I've been exploring what I can do with just basses and processing, live in real time. No (or minimal) edits, no overdubs...

10 solo albums later, and the influence of a few of my recent collaborators sees me adding new sounds to the mix. The key element is the addition of the Quneo - a controller made by Keith McMillen (who also make the Softstep foot controller I've been using for the last few years). The Quneo allows me to play drums and synth sounds alongside the bass - the grid layout (like a drum-machine) means that synth and keyboard parts can end up being pretty unusual (hear The Ice Cracks...) but the sensitivity means that the drum parts can be fantastically subtle (the intro to It's Our Scars That Unite Us). I'm fascinated by the way that percussive sounds fit into my stumbling, rolling rhythmic world - I've avoided metronomic timing for my entire solo career, as it tends to make loop based stuff really stilted and uninteresting, so doing that with drums, particularly given the influence on my sense of rhythm of J Dilla and particularly the way his influence was channeled on D'Angelo's Voodoo... It's made for a record that is, I think, the best solo thing I've ever...