‘The Surrey Ambience Service’ new Bob Holroyd on Real World X

These two new, complimentary pieces were written during the last 18 months of uncertainty and they use repetition and layers of sound to reflect the, often contradictory, emotions we’ve all experienced in this period.

Like a musical emergency-response team for the nervous system, the evocatively titled ‘The Surrey Ambience Service’, offers the antidote to the feelings of tension and uncertainty that waiting on the unknown engenders, “My music has become a lot about space, not rushing, letting the ideas gradually form,” says Holroyd. “I love to explore the textures of different sounds, and how these can be combined to make a sort of sonic collage. This track definitely is about the waiting, the tension of not knowing what will happen. But things can and do develop within us, layer by layer and we do move to a different internal space – we just can’t always push it.”

The second track ‘Searching’ has a similar meaning and influence, built around repetitive lines that develop, as if adding more colours. “The repetition for me is sort of like daydreaming, it allows my mind to wander. The middle of this track when the piano loop temporarily stops is like being lost in one’s thoughts, but then coming back to them again, slightly clearer.”

The Surrey Ambience Service is out now on all digital platforms.

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