Eden Bareket - Day Dream (2021)

In March 2020 as the world ground to a halt all around me I found myself living alone for the first time in my life. With a lot of free time and nowhere to go I started spending more and more time playing by myself. My usual practice routine of technical exercises, scales and rhythms seemed a little redundant in a world where I wasn't able to play and perform with other musicians. Yet my need to play and make music was stronger than ever. I taught myself to play the saxophone and the piano simultaneously so I could experience a fuller sound but I could really only play slow and simple melodies, ballads. I started spending hours practicing just one melody at a time, getting to know songs more intimately than ever before. Instead of using a song as a vehicle for improvisation I was diving into the melody alone, finding whole worlds in each single note just like I had to find new worlds to explore in my new solitary state.

My only refuge during that time was Brooklyn's Prospect Park, the one place you could safely go to and the one place that hasn’t really changed. While everywhere else felt like panic and anxiety, the park's trees and animals seemed oblivious to the pandemic that was raging in the world of humans, or at least didn't seem to care about it much. I took long walks every day, trying to absorb some of that calmness while taking pictures of everything around me. Noticing the slow and constant change in the colors of the trees and squirrels, the bird songs, the light after sunset, it all started coming together.

My daily train of thoughts running on the express track gradually shifted to a slower local train and then slowed down some more to a walking pace, just enough to experience the present moment while still moving forward. So it happened, that at a time when the world was filled with stress I finally found the most quiet place out of which to make music.

With that in mind I went into the studio with the following concept: make an album without stress. At every step of the process I made decisions to facilitate that. I chose musicians I felt comfortable being around, songs I loved to play that would not be technically difficult and minimal arrangements that would leave a lot of space to breathe.

As you listen to this record I hope you’ll think about trees, clouds and the slow constant change of time, take a breath and remember that every note, every moment is a whole world unto itself.