Music has always served as an escape for me, a means of picking up and going somewhere far away. I suppose this project, which I’ve come to call Eloign, sort of serves as a tribute to that meditative, therapeutic diversion that music has long offered me. Its roots can be traced back to the summer of 2006, when a nameless and admittedly juvenile heavy metal trio consisting of a few high school friends and myself parted ways. At this point, I turned my attention to more folk-inspired acoustic music, drawn by the storytelling quality often associated with the style. It’s become a personal endeavor for me. Who knew it would take 10 years before I could finally start committing my ideas to tape!
From the get-go, I’ve been driven to create the sort of music that I would put on the turntable at home. The music that most appeals to me is the sort that takes me on a journey, progressing through a series of moods, ideas, and unexpected twists whilst painting vibrant pictures in my mind. I like not being comfortable with a song’s arrangement and knowing that the music is not going where I expect. I want to be surprised. Some music casts such beautiful, almost tangible imagery. It can carry the listener across vast panoramas and down to intimate portraits, from snow-capped peaks or verdant forests to a teary-eyed, pining stare between two lovers.
I want to accomplish the same with my project. I’ve striven to interweave the emotions that the subtle moments and the passages of grandeur can generate, which is why each of these songs became quite multi-faceted. They are direct products of things that most inspire me, namely nature, heritage, and music. Each one bears a unique story as they were slowly assembled over the course of 10 years and through multiple phases in my personal life. I’ve gained and lost friends, moved away from home, married my wife, and explored a few beautiful (and a few less than interesting) parts of the world. All of these events and many others affected the tracks featured on this EP, regardless of whether I consciously acknowledged their influence.
The process of development has been an arduous one, but I’m pleased that no part of writing this music has been rushed. Every passage and every lyric has received careful consideration and I’ve tried to include in this collection only the elements that most closely align with my vision for the project’s overarching theme.