It’s disconcerting just how quiet the canal paths in Venice become when it gets dark. Even the outside diners talk in hushed tones, sensing something unseen as the encroaching watery gloom sucks the days’ sweet tones from the still warm air.

 

Maybe the gentle lapping at the stone edges subconsciously recalls the ghosts from so many times past, like spectres’ wings about to whistle down the narrow streets and sweep us off to meet those foreboding shadows.

 

But as light relief, our evening shoes tip-tap a gentle rhythm to accompany the present day muted gossip. It pings off the medieval walls and sends graceful echoes ahead to warn the ghouls. There’s a natural rhythm that could almost persuade us to dance, and so ‘Footsteps’ is my musical interpretation of a lilting evening stroll beside the Venetian canals. The eeriness and enveloping scenery could not be more filmic, and so I hope ‘Footsteps’ conjures up images from an old black and white film. With each hesitant guitar riff entry, a figure temporarily emerges to silently observe a clandestine liaison.

 

‘Footsteps’ was composed and produced in one of my favourite ways of working. I love to create riffs and short phrases, overlay them, pan them to left, right and across the stereo field, and see where the musical journey takes me, and it’s always to a new sonic scene. The warmth and engaging tone of the classical guitar is so easy on the ear and it’s great to work with a real instrument alongside my own voice and the many sampled instruments and found sounds I’ve collected along the way. But for ‘Footsteps’, there was no need to introduce anything else, my guitar said it all.