Brighton-based performer and composer Poppy Ackroyd performs stunningly beautiful tracks from her fourth full-length album Pause. Written during the pandemic and shortly after the birth of her first child, the title refers to the feeling of normal life being temporarily put on hold.
Pause is a collection of 10 solo piano works. Poppy tells us: “For previous albums almost as much of the creative process was spent editing and manipulating recordings as it was composing at the piano, however after having my son, I struggled to spend time sat in front of a computer. The only thing I wanted to do while he was still small, if I wasn't with him, was to play the piano. In fact, much of the album was written with him asleep on me in a sling as I used any quiet moment to compose.
It therefore made sense that this album should be a solo piano album. I used extended technique - playing with sounds from inside the instrument - like I do in my multi-tracked recordings, however it was important to me that every track on the album could be entirely performed with just two hands on the piano.”
