Based in London, emerging alternative musician Silverhours returns with his second single ‘Sad Letter’ from the upcoming LP, Madeleine Moment.
The song is inspired by Haruki Murakami novels and Korean movies. ‘Sad Letter’ started from the simple guitar arpeggio, which was produced to sound like an old vinyl record.
The song’s arrangement involves a cinematic strings soundscape inspired by works of Henryk Górecki and film scores by Jonny Greenwood. The programmed strings are blended with a Cello part, which was performed by Clare O’Connell, a very talented cellist, who played on the Radiohead and the Smile records. Other collaborators include Clive Deamer (Portishead, Radiohead) who played the drums, and Timothy Lefebrve (David Bowie) on the bass guitar.
When the track was almost ready to be sent to his mixing engineer, Silverhours still felt it was missing something. By complete chance he just happened that day to be listening to ‘Sketches of Spain’ by Miles Davis and realised that trumpet was that missing element. He came across Joe Auckland, who played trumpet with the likes of Mumford and Sons and The Pet Shop Boys, and he helped him with an expressive trumpet solo in the coda section.
The sound concept was to make this song sound like one of the dusty records found on a record fair, a bit warble, lo-fi soundtrack for the movie that never existed.
Silverhours comments on the song: “‘Sad Letter’ is one of my personal favourites. It is about inner beauty and emptiness, the power of the moment, and deep memories of the past.”
ABOUT SILVERHOURS
Silverhours is a musician based in London who takes inspiration from the geometry of musical rhythms and the dark sounds of the Scottish electronic duo Boards Of Canada. His artistry features an eclectic mix of sounds influenced by both jazz and electronica.
The forthcoming album, Madeleine Moment, which is out on June 9, 2023, was mixed by Shuta Shinoda, who has worked with the likes of Hot Chip, Alexis Taylor, and Joe Goddard, and mastered by John Davis, famous for his work with Gorillaz, The Killers, and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.
Silverhours was a winner of Nick Cave’s cover competition in August 2020. Nick Cave commented: “The deeply moving version of ‘Spinning Song,’ with its extraordinarily affecting home video footage, was such a strange, bold and emotional elevation of the original.”
‘Sad Letter’ is available on all streaming platforms.