Released to universally acclaimed reviews in October 2023, the skies, they shift like chords, Roger Eno’s second solo album for Deutsche Grammophon, contained twelve shimmering musical portraits that traced an evocative and thought-provoking path through sound and silence. Fresh from a series of live performances which included sold out shows at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and National Sawdust in New York, the British composer and musician now presents a new eight-track mini-album, ‘the skies: rarities’. This collection consists of re-interpretations and unreleased highlights from “the skies..” recording session, together with Eno’s 2023 popular World Piano Day track “Through the Blue (Piano Version)” and the former Amazon Original track “Above and Below”. 

´the skies:rarities’ begins with two tracks that explore different soundworlds; the singers of Vocalconsort Berlin provide the wordless chorus in “Patterned Ground”, for choir and electronics, while the opening piece, “Breaking The Surface”, features Scoring Berlin. They were asked to combine the notes on the score with moments of improvisation, a process central to Roger Eno’s music.

“A lot of these tracks come from improvisations”, Roger Eno explains. “But they’re then ‘cleaned up’, which generally means taking notes out to give the ones that remain more space, which in turn gives people time to reflect.”