Alex Henry Foster Shares “Shadows Of Our Evening Tides”
In September of this year, Alex Henry Foster released his second album of 2024, “A Measure Of Shape And Sounds“. The album is an intimate journey of its own, representing a profound personal breathe-in made of several layers of guitar loops, reverberations, resonances, and oscillations juxtaposed together to create a sonic multi-directional contemplative maelstrom.
AMOSAS provides an ongoing soundtrack to that internal self-searching reflection, inviting us to lift ourselves forward, to tame the other bonding voices to which we usually surrender our longing desires for freedom.
Today, as an anniversary celebration of Foster’s 2018 album, Windows in the Sky, Foster is releasing one last EP in 2024, “A Whispering Moment”. The EP highlights the freely evolving nature of the song “Shadows Of Our Evening Tides” from its initial incarnation and its organic transformation through multiple live performances.
A poignant demonstration of a deep emotional immersion and fragile sonic intensity, “Shadows Of Our Evening Tides” offers a vivid glimpse into Alex Henry Foster’s cathartic creative universe while standing as a perfect reflection of his enviable reputation as one of the most engaging, ferocious, and provocative bands to set foot on a stage today. The track also features a sample of Allen Ginsberg reading his poem “Song,” meditation on love, mortality, and the ephemeral nature of human experience.
About the EP, Foster says, “I believe this very special project not only encapsulates the incredibly personal and intimate emotions that essentially express the brokenness of my heart following my father’s passing and my long belated grieving process, but that also became a singular element for friends and loved ones to find solace in their own losses before providing comfort to many people who would later discover the hopeful nature of a record that might appear or be shallowly interpreted as a sad and weary reflection of love’s impermanence and disarray when its true essence remains finding peace and purpose in our own bleakest times.”
He continues, “And like most unambitious honesty and unselfishly-absorbed creative let go, “Windows in the Sky” would subsequently offer me the ultimate blessing to redefine my musical journey, and maybe, if not more importantly, to rewire my whole existence entirely.”
“Therefore, I hope that A Whispering Moment will lead you to discover or rediscover the vibrant sensations of cultivating your life — of being truly alive.” The live video for “Shadows Of Our Evening Tides” and A Whispering Moment EP are out today via Hopeful Tragedy Records.
FEATURE INTERVIEW:
“Shadows Of Our Evening Tides” has undergone organic transformation through live performances. How do you approach reinterpreting a song in a live setting, and how has that influenced the final version on the EP?
I think it all goes back to my perspective regarding what creation and art are all about. As much as we want to keep our environment from outgrowing us and are willing to resist change to prevent it from happening, I believe that creation is the product of our own unconscious desire for chaos, a way to sublimate our pretension and denial, to break the illusion of comfort we may find in immutability. It defies fears and the status quo, and this is especially true, if not fundamental, when it comes to music, which, to me, is the only form of expression that organically grows long after its initial inception.
It holds a free nucleus entity as its core, and therefore it has not only the ability to evolve but is designed to transform itself and whatever or whomever it reaches out to by nature. That’s why the studio work is defined by an intimate moment conceived from within, something captured by time and its entanglement, while the live incarnation is the emergence of its growing force, of its overpowering freedom from time itself. It’s not exactly an approach for me; it’s about channeling what cannot be contained and what I want to let take over… Over me, the band, the song, the moment… Over everything. The EP is like photographs of that creative mutation. It’s my idea of capturing the different steps of an intangible spark turning into an indefinable beam of light or life.
You’ve stated that Windows in the Sky allowed you to redefine your musical journey and even rewire your existence. How has your creative process evolved since that album?
As much as I liked to believe that this creation was about trying to provoke some kind of life out of my inanimate personal concepts, I realized that the more I keep my limited and self-serving narcissism out of the way, the more I am able to discern the outlines of the invisible I deeply long for but am too fearful to allow to be free from my need for control.
That’s why I wouldn’t fit in a team of 25 writers gathered in some writing camp to piece in whatever formula is used to design a hit song. I suppose that everybody has a reason and its associated technique to create… Mine is about enlightenment, personal emancipation, and collective communion. It’s a perpetual journey opposing abandonment to pretentiousness, which probably explains the reasons why it took the form of an endless succession of minor chords, juxtaposed with climatic suspensions and let-go. Creative honesty only requires one person to start the process; that’s what “it” means to me.
The idea of “cultivating your life” and being “truly alive” is central to your vision for the EP. How do you hope listeners will interpret this message in their own lives?
My hope always gravitates between the notions of inviting and welcoming. Inviting revolves around your own unconscious parameters and predetermined guidelines, while welcoming is about communing with whatever type of people take a chance to join you, to be one for an instant, regardless of their perceptions, thoughts, or beliefs. The EP is a wonderful excuse—or empowering pretext—to gather people. The message has yet to be defined and doesn’t require interpretation. That’s why it’s about “cultivating life” and not about what I hope or foresee it should be for others. It’s personal abandonment, not designed pretension. That’s how I see it.
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