Tiny Leaves announces new album Mynd + shares lead single 'With The Hollow At My Feet'

Mynd, a sonic landscape recorded during a residency with the National Trust, is due out on July 14th

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Tiny Leaves field-recording in the valley by E. Pike
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TINY LEAVES · With The Hollow At My Feet

Critically acclaimed composer and multi-instrumentalist Joel Pike AKA Tiny Leaves, crafts realms of gentle, insistent piano motifs against shimmering strings and electronics. On July 14th, he is set to release his fifth album, Mynd, a sonic portrait of the Shropshire countryside. The album features a mesmerising mix of atmospheric soundscapes, haunting strings, and enchanting piano melodies, intertwined with field and bio data recordings from Pike's residency with the National Trust at The Long Mynd, an AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty).

Today, the announcement comes with the release of new single ‘With the Hollow at My Feet’, a gentle yet radiant number made up of gentle piano, unfurling strings, howls of the wind and delicate bird songs, beautifully capturing the something of the hollow’s atmosphere. Due to Pike’s love for analogue instruments, he took an old tape recorder, using only its internal basic microphone, to his favourite places around Long Mynd to create this single. ‘With the Hollow at My Feet’ features on this year’s Earth Percent’s Earth Day album alongside artists such as Brian Eno, Anna Calvi, Dry Cleaning, Coldplay, Nile Rodgers & CHIC and many more.

Inspired by David Tress, in his expressive paintings of the British landscape, Tiny Leaves often explores ways to interpret a landscape in music and how it feels to be there: “For a few years, I’ve been exploring what it means to have a sense of belonging to a place (Cynefin) and somehow interpret how a landscape could be represented in sound” Pike. His 2017 album Notes on Belonging, saw him present these explorations from a distance. However, Mynd sees Pike delve into new territories, experimenting with processes and challenges new to him, whilst fully immersing himself in the landscape of Long Mynd.

Upon returning to his homeland of Shropshire and studying a postgraduate by research degree, which entailed creating a body of music set in the Shropshire ANOB, Pike was inspired by his time spent in the local hills and valleys: “I didn’t realise until I returned, how much I’d missed the sense of belonging to this landscape and its familiar ridge lines. I had an urge to explore this feeling in my music and to spend time in the lush green hills and valleys''.

During his time here, Pike became acutely aware of the fragility of nature, which alongside the backdrop of climate change and the sounds of nature being amplified during the pandemic, motivated him to make ecology themed music. He started leaning in closer to the sounds of the nature that surrounded him, often taking walks, microphone in hand, carefully listening to the birdsong, wind, water and all the other sounds in nature.

Longing to explore the larger narrative of portraying a place, its ecology and its feeling through music, Pike moved a number of his instruments and equipment into the former shop at National Trust Carding Mill Valley site and set up his residency (a first both for them and Pike). Being at the heart of Long Mynd allowed him to record his responses to his surroundings in real-time, taking adventures deep into the landscape, making field and biodata recordings, and tapping into the expertise of the local National Trust staff to dive into the wildlife and sites off the beaten track.

Explore the Mynd Project photo collection HERE.

Tiny Leaves Live

18.05 Cardingmill Valley National Trust Cafe, 'With the Hollow at My Feet' single launch
18.08 Shropshire, Camp Bestival
17.11 Wiltshire Music Centre

Tiny Leaves announces new album 'Mynd'; made during his residency at The National Trust

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