Posted by Lockdown has brought many different secrets to light.
Edinburgh based composer Tom Fraser found himself at home for lengthy stretches, and took to sifting through his archives.
Pulling an old disc from the shelves, he blew off the dust and played it for the first time, uncovering a family secret in the process.
As it turns out, his Great Aunt Mirry was a keen pianist, assembling her own compositions as a hobby, and then playing them for a select few.
Having literally picked the disc up from the street during a house clearance some 30 years ago, he was stunned by its contents.
“As a firm believer in DIY music, I recognise that urge,” he comments. “You have to be a believer when, as it is for most people, your music goes unheard, unliked and unsuccessful, but the love of making music, the feeling you get when its going well, when you just listen to something you have done again and again, looping it round because it works, even if just for you, is a wonderful feeling.”
Since then, he’s been re-working and remixing these snippets of music, working alongside his brother-in-law Simon Tong (The Verve, Magnetic North).
“I always knew I would return to Mirry’s recordings, but when COVID happened Simon, who I’ve known for 25 years but never ever wanted to embarrass by playing him my music, suddenly suggested us exchanging recordings. Then after a month of that he asked if I had any ideas for some music. I mentioned this and things went on from there, fast.”
Out now, the resulting album ‘Mirry’ is a fascinating blend of old and new, matching the private to the public in a deeply original way.
Simon Tong adds: “We started to work separately – cutting up and editing Mirry’s recordings, working on each individual piece, processing her music and fragmenting it, adding other instrumentation and sending our ideas back and forth between London and Edinburgh. It very soon became apparent that the project had something very magical and even sacred about it and it was starting to consume us both.”
He adds: “At one point in the process Tom rang his Uncle Geoffrey to explain what we were doing and to ask if any of Mirry’s photos or belongings may still exist. It turned out Geoffrey had stored away hours of unseen Cinefilm footage of Mirry from around the time she was making her recordings, boxes of photos – many stereographic slides – all of it just gathering dust. It felt like it was just waiting for us to rediscover it. When we were able to we plundered this archive and immersed ourselves in her life – seeing her playing piano, laughing, smoking, walking around the countryside, we were seeing her come back to life before our eyes. In the stereoscopic slides were pictures of Mirry in 3D smiling back at us in an archaic virtual reality.”
These images form the basis of a new video, one Clash is able to showcase before anyone else. Taken from the record, ‘Consolation’ is a pensive, meditative work, with those time-portal piano notes intersperses with evocative production flourishes. A real one off, the results have thrilled everyone close to the family.
Tom Fraser explains: “Geoffrey is very, very happy, delighted that Mirry is being heard. I hope we can release her originals, I think it’s important, and I would like others to get the chance to play with the work as I have done, but let’s see where it goes!”
Watch ‘Consolation’ below.
‘Mirry’ is out on February 26th – order it HERE.
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