Erica Bramham - Twelve Moons (2021)

When I began working on the music for this album the only concrete thing I had in mind was that I wanted to write a song cycle. The final idea for this project came from my Czech language studies, something I have been pursuing slowly alongside music. Czech is a difficult language to learn, as it is full of idiosyncrasies and embedded meanings that are difficult to truly grasp as a native English speaker. The names for the Czech months are an example of this character, with their etymology relating directly to their season, and they became the starting point for all the compositions on this album.

The names for each month have multiple possible translations, some quite abstract, so I had to bring my own interpretations to the creative process. Many of the lyrical ideas on the album come from research into European folklore, but I couldn't ignore that I have grown up on the other side of the world with a very different culture and landscape. I have drawn just as much from my own experience of language and location as from European art, literature and travel. This resulted in songs with a kind of universal sense of place, and an emphasis on the human experience that remains constant regardless of language, culture or location.

Twelve Moons was written to be performed in full from start to finish, with each composition giving way to the next, and I chose to record it in the same way. While each track can be enjoyed alone the experience is definitely richer on listening to the whole album from beginning to end.

-- Erica Bramham