Levante (feat. Panayotis)

Lefkosia based musician Henry Walton announces debut album Are You Invested In The Economy Of Love? under the project moniker of ELY on Algebra Records. Sonically sitting somewhere between jazztronica and the fusion of King Crimson & Snarky Puppy, ELY offers a somewhat darker, rougher and punkier collection of improvised instrumentals recorded over a period of 3 years in London and Lefkosia, Cyprus.

Whilst the recordings feature some of the UK's top Jazz musicians, including AIM album of the year winner Sarathy Korwar, Collocuter's Tamar Osborn and Chris Williams from Mercury nominated Led Bib, Are You Invested is most definitely not a jazz record.

Take an untrained indie musician, with a love of spiritual jazz and fusion, with no formal training and access to a load of top musicians then it's little surprise that this is the kind of album you might get. That's not to say the album is obvious at all. Full of original ideas which twist and turn, whether they be fully formed fuzz gated riffs or half dreamt melodies and structures, the album grooves, dances and weaves through a collection of instrumental soundscapes that represent various personal moments caught in flux.

As ELY's Henry Walton says:

Because I'm not formally trained I basically can't play the kind of music I want to. I was caught in this musical space between two places. What I could write and what I wanted to write.

At the same time I was figuratively and literally caught between two worlds. The world of London which I had left behind and a new beginning in Lefkosia. I was constantly battling with two versions of myself and trying to find peace and security in the middle. The process of creating this album and collaborating with much better musicians was a means of achieving that.

Album announcement track Levante is an ever building seven and a half minute ode to a Mediterranean wind & features local Cypriot artist & Honest Electronics collective member Panayotis. As he reminisces about a simple breakfast, beautifully deft interplay between the sax of Chris Williams and flute of Tamar Osborn begin to take over, swirling into a final flourish of brass and woodwind over a bed of loose percussion and bubbling electronics.

The cover art, by artist Max Eru, plays with the idea of a fallen society with no structure or order except for the all conquering power of love. Like the musicians on the record he was given complete freedom to interpret the music and key themes in his style.