William Doyle unveils new box set of ambient albums

NME

Dorset-native electronica artist William Doyle has revealed the details for a new box set containing three of his ambient albums.

The ambient collections were made alongside his other albums – his Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut, ‘Total Strife Forever’ (released under his alias East India Youth), ‘Culture Of Volume’, ‘Your Wilderness Revisited’ and ‘Great Spans Of Muddy Time’.

His ambient-leaning albums, ‘The Dream Derealised’, ‘Lightnesses Vol I & II’ and ‘Near Future Residence’ will now receive their first vinyl pressings via Tough Love, both as a highly limited four-LP box set, titled ‘Slowly Arranged: 2016-19’, and as separate albums. You can pre-order them here.

To support the release, Doyle will perform an exclusive ambient set at London’s Kings Place on October 27 – you can buy tickets for that event here.

Speaking about ‘The Dream Derealised’, Doyle said the album helped him through “a difficult period of anxiety, panic and a regular dissociative feeling called derealisation”.

He said at the time: “I’m releasing them now as a cathartic measure, and as a message for others who may be going through difficult times themselves. What I told myself at the time, what I can tell you now: You are not in danger. You are not going insane. You are not alone.”

Of ‘Lightnesses Vol. I & II’ he added: “During their creation I’d often take photographs of the light coming in through the windows of the two houses I lived in during their creation. I’d post these on social media and they became quite popular parts of my output. This music was intended to accompany those visuals.

“The first volume’s photo is a double exposure of the sun shining in on my notebook and my hand, whereas the photo for the second volume was taken in Joshua Tree Park, California as I saw our tail lights illuminate one of the trees.”

William Doyle’s self-released string of ambient-leaning albums, The Dream Derealised, Lightnesses Vol I & II & Near Future Residence are to receive a first vinyl pressing as both a limited 4LP box set, titled Slowly Arranged: 2016-19, and as separate albums on black vinyl. pic.twitter.com/GbdvaDWX3B

— Tough Love (@ToughLove) July 6, 2022

And of ‘Near Future Residence’, Doyle said the compositions on that record “were composed in entirely generative ways using samples of instruments, synthesisers and field recordings I’ve collected and developed throughout 2018. In generative composition, rules are set and parameters are chosen and then put into motion, the results constantly changing and surprising.”

Back in 2020, Doyle record a charity single called ‘Inside I’ll Sing’ as part of the ‘Isolation Choir’, which also featured Alt-J‘s Joe Newman, composer Anna Meredith, Hatis Noit and Douglas Dare in its line-up.

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