Luce Mawdsley Announces Autumn Tour and Cassette Release of Latest Album Northwest & Nebulous
Artist: Luce Mawdsley
Release Date: 2024-10-25
Genres: Experimental Music, Psych-folk
Label: Pure O Records
Luce Mawdsley, a Liverpool-based composer and musician, has confirmed an autumn tour in support of their newest instrumental album, Northwest & Nebulous. The album, already available in vinyl and digital formats via Mawdsley’s independent label Pure O Records, will also be released as a limited edition cassette on 25 October 2024. Early copies of the cassette will be offered to fans attending the tour.
The album is described as an instrumental exploration rooted in folk, Americana, and cinematic traditions, reflecting the landscapes of Mawdsley’s childhood in rural northern England. Northwest & Nebulous was self-produced by Mawdsley in Liverpool’s Grade II listed Scandinavian Church, and features a core trio with Mawdsley on guitar, organ, and percussion, Nicholas Branton on clarinet, and Rachel Nicholas on viola. The compositions on the album are built around recurring themes of water, shifting soundscapes, and subtle distortions, with each track designed as a distinct vignette connected to an overarching exploration of identity, place, and experience.
The title of the album, Northwest & Nebulous, ties both geographic and abstract concepts together. “Northwest” points to Formby, a coastal town in northwest England, which holds significance in Mawdsley’s personal geography. “Nebulous” refers to the fluid, unfixed nature of the music and the composer’s own identity, which they explore through the record. As a non-binary and neurodivergent artist, Mawdsley sought to create music that reflects a sense of personal evolution and invites listeners to shape their own emotional landscapes within the sound. The record emphasizes openness and possibility, with Mawdsley describing their creative process as one that embraces curiosity and fluidity.
The instrumental compositions combine elements of traditional genres and experimental structures, resulting in music that blends the familiar with the exploratory. Mawdsley’s work often draws from themes of fluidity and transformation, mirroring their own experiences of shifting identity. The music avoids conventional forms, instead creating an immersive and cinematic experience that encourages listeners to project their own narratives and experiences onto the compositions. Mawdsley describes the album as an expression of joy, curiosity, and compassion, moving away from the more constrained and introspective approaches they had previously taken with songwriting.
The autumn tour will see Mawdsley performing the material from Northwest & Nebulous live, accompanied by the release of the cassette edition of the album.
About Luce Mawdsley
Luce Mawdsley is a non-binary and autistic composer and multi-instrumentalist based in Liverpool. Their artistic practice focuses on progressive and experimental music, often drawing on personal experiences of neurodivergence, queerness, and mental health. Mawdsley’s work frequently engages with themes of identity, fluidity, and place, incorporating acoustic instruments alongside more experimental sounds to create layered, immersive compositions. They explore unconventional musical forms, allowing for a flexible, evolving approach to composition that challenges normative ideas of structure and expression.
In 2023, Mawdsley founded Pure O Records, an independent record label that supports experimental music by artists exploring divergent phenomenologies. The label serves as a platform for musicians examining themes of gender, identity, and place, with a focus on promoting innovative acoustic music that defies traditional boundaries. Through this initiative, Mawdsley aims to foster a space for creative experimentation and support for artists working outside mainstream genres.
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