Merlyn Driver - It Was Also Sometimes Daylight (2025) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Simmerdim ii
02. Parachutes
03. Shoal
04. Prism
05. The Gathering Place
06. Onto Something
07. Interlude (a typewriter in depression)
08. Half the Past
09. Courage
10. Cururu
11. The Descent
12. Manndalselva
13. The Morning is Wiser than The Evening

Recorded partly in London with the help of David Gray and partly in a converted barn in rural Finland, the album is a raw, intimate meditation on life, memory, nature, and childhood - shaped as much by acoustic folk and contemporary influences as by the rhythms and textures of the natural world.

The album follows Merlyn's critically acclaimed multi-artist project Simmerdim: Curlew Sounds, released in partnership with the RSPB in 2022. Inspired by his memories of curlews - one of the UK's most threatened birds - calling out in the simmerdim (the night- long twilight found in the Northern Isles around midsummer), the project received praise from MOJO, The Guardian, Songlines (5 stars), and BBC Radio 4's Front Row. It has since helped raise over GBP15,000 for curlew conservation.

Now, with It Was Also Sometimes Daylight , Merlyn explores more of his formative relationship with sound and the wild. Raised on a smallholding in Orkney without mains electricity, Merlyn's childhood was shaped by long hours spent outdoors - often to escape what could be a volatile home environment.

Some of my favourite early memories involve tracking and studying wildlife in the fields around my childhood home. I didn't attend the local school until my early teens and was able to spend a lot of time outdoors. Once the dark winter months set in though, my siblings and I had to make our own fun inside. One of my earliest musical memories involves us creating a homemade tape of surreal songs and imaginary sounds, including 'a typewriter in depression'... We discovered that by simultaneously pressing 'Record' while holding the Pause button halfway down, we could change the recording speed and distort our voices.

That sense of instinctive, lo- fi creativity runs throughout the album. I wanted the record to be stripped- down, raw, and intimate. Built mostly around acoustic instrumentation, the album features contributions from artists including Owen Spafford (fiddle), Francesca Ter-Berg (cello), Nathan Riki Thomson (double bass), and a cast of non-human collaborators: curlews, frogs, toads, geese, and more.

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [mp3]

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [flac]

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [Hi-Res]