“As soon as I remove myself from the day-to-day, I get this flood of inspiration,” Etherwood tells Apple Music. For his third album, 2018’s In Stillness, the liquid drum ’n’ bass producer (real name Edward Allen) headed out to a remote cabin in Finland to write and record, and two years later he found himself on the beach in Cornwall, Southwest England. “I was meditating quite a lot and with everything stripped away and life’s distractions mitigated, the tunes just poured out me.”
Beginning many of his songs on piano or guitar, Etherwood has as much in common with a singer-songwriter as your average drum ’n’ bass producer, and taking key inspiration from travel and meditation, he creates music that has a gentle calm you wouldn’t usually expect from the genre. Here, he talks us through seven key tracks from the album.
“Lighthouse” (feat. Zara Kershaw)
“This was actually one of the last tunes I wrote for the album, but I’d had the guitar part for a while and had been jamming around with ideas. Zara and I did a tune together called ‘Souvenirs’ on my second album, which went down really well, so I really wanted to collaborate with her again. She’s an amazing topline writer, but there’s a real integrity to her vocals and lyrics. The tone of her voice is just incredible.”
“Fall Awake”
“Lyrically, this means more to me than a lot of the other tunes. It’s based on an idea I had for a book about falling in love with someone in a dreamworld and kind of wishing you weren’t dreaming anymore. I actually started writing it, but it all got lost on an ex’s laptop. Musically, there’s a little arpeggio in there, which is from Omnisphere. Omnisphere is this huge plug-in software by Spectrasonics that’s just full of amazing sounds. If I’m lacking inspiration, I just scroll through there until I find something just right.”
“Dahlia”
“This is quite a stripped-back and honest tune. It’s essentially live acoustic drum samples. I wanted to use those and combine it with loads of guitar and quite nice, raw piano. I also actually sampled one note from a cello and synthesized it so I could make chords out of it, essentially.”
“The Current” (feat. DRS)
“DRS is one of my favorite people in the world, both as a person and vocalist. The lyrics on this are about getting swept up in the current of social media and getting a bit lost. I had it all recorded as an instrumental and then, in my head, I could just hear DRS coming through on the verse. I hit him up, and within a few days he came back with the perfect verse. This is one of my favorites, as it’s been so long in the making.”
“I Will Wave to You”
“This is probably the most stripped-back, minimal tune I’ve ever made. It’s only got about seven or eight components to it. The drums are really raw and there’s just one piano-bass-and-guitar track. The album, in general, is about transformation and self-development, and this track’s inspired by the state you can get in when meditating sometimes. It’s about being able to, essentially, wave goodbye to an older aspect of yourself and watch it go by.”
“Follow the River” (feat. Lily Budiasa)
“I was walking along the beach on a nice calm day, and I just began to hear this guitar part in my head in a nice three-quarter waltz. I know it sounds really cringeworthy, but it was inspired by the waves and the constant motion of water. I just bolted back to the cabin. Once I got the part in my head, I knew I had to get it down. It features Lily Budiasa, who’s based in Australia and has the most amazing voice. She’s on two tracks on the album and she just delivered the perfect vocal for this.”
“Okusha”
“This was inspired by a trip my girlfriend and myself had taken to Japan. We were staying in Niigata and took this trip to a shrine called Togakushi. It was pouring down and we were like drowned rats, but it was absolutely breathtaking. We felt really cleansed being there. I wanted to make a really stripped-back ambient tune that mirrored the feeling of being there. It begins with this long piano intro, and I kept the sound palette quite minimal and calm to reflect the relaxed nature of the place. I got the idea down as soon as I got back to my hotel room.”