MOSTLY AUTUMN

Mostly Autumn is a progressive folk rock band from Yorkshire, formed in the 90s. I discovered them by accident, because I read somewhere that Troy Donockley (mainly piper of Nightwish, but also multi-instrumentalist) has collaborated with them. As I'd read in Wikipedia that Mostly Autumn was inspired mainly by Genesis, Camel and Pink Floyd, I'd expected to listen to a rich sophisticated sound with complex melodies, full of Mellotron and Hammond Organ, complex beats and in general a sound resembling the "golden era of rock". But I failed! And good job I did.

I would lie if I said if that the first Mostly Autumn song I heard an original one by them. It was early April 2018 and I was alone at home. I was in Facebook at that time, reading posts in Nightwish World Community (a Nightwish fan club, which I am a member in). During that time Tuomas Holopainen, Johanna Kurkela and Troy Donockley had released an album with their newly-formed band, Auri. (Yes, the name is inspired by this lovely and cute character in the Kingkiller Chronicles and she reminds me of myself in my childhood). But anyway there's a question in this interview where Troy Donockley is shown a picture of himself, wearing a Santa Claus hat and singing. And there he bursts out laughing and he says that in the shot he was performing Comfortably Numb with Mostly Autumn. It wasn't though the first time that I'd heard of the name. I noticed once at a friend's house that he owned a copy of Passengers (the album shown on top), so after Troy had mentioned that, I remembered that this band name wasn't completely unknown to me. 

Thus I searched for their music in YouTube. And what I came across first was a playlist called Pink Floyd Revisited. So, yes. The first song that I heard from them was a cover of Comfortably Numb (without Troy). The thing that instantly stroke me was that the song overall lasted 9 minutes and it contained a huge guitar solo in the end (Mostly Autumn are popular for their long guitar solos in the end), which really enchanted me. I was mesmerised and I thought I had no sense of time. I was just sitting in front of my computer, at home in the dead of the night, listening with my headphones on to this masterpiece! I won't say that I liked it more than the original version, for it would be a blasphemy for Pink Floyd, which has been the only thing that has remained in my heart since my very early childhood. But this song....this version of this song....and especially this damn guitar riff made me turn 15 years back in time, when I was still at elementary school and being the only girl in my class, not listening to shitty Balkan pop music. 

Many things happened then. 2018, in general, was a very difficult year for me, I was suffering depression, I was feeling angry with myself because I thought I didn't support my two closest people, I had failed in every exam at University, I'd even stopped playing the piano and hadn't repaired my synthesizer. So, after April I didn't search much for any Mostly Autumn music. But then, when I started to feel less anxious and I met my present "second family" (who are big progressive rock fans too!), I thought I should find some new bands, listen to a broader range of music. This summer, I stayed for a month in Cefalonia (my second post is about my beloved hometown island), reading, writing stories and music, walking in the fields, swimming a lot and of course discovering much of music. That was the right time to go back to my first love and listen to some more songs of this lovely Yorkshire band. And so I did!

I heard of a song called Evergreen (evergreen is a kind of tree). And what I felt during listening to this song can be described only as "artistic orgasm". This is a term I'd made up when I was at High School and I never did since. Because since there was never anything artistic that could give me such goosebumps. I don't know, maybe it was the fact that I was getting older and I couldn't get this childish enthusiasm anymore, maybe I was feeling too unhappy or dissatisfied with my life, or whatever. But what I know is that Evergreen made me feel exactly this chill in my veins that I had in High School, when I'd first heard Nightwish's The Poet and the Pendulum, Genesis' The Cinema Show and many many more. It made me feel happy, a feeling that I realised I lacked. 

Why did I get into Evergreen so much? Well, there are millions of reasons which I can and cannot explain. When I first heard the song it reminded me of a mixture of Evanescence and Pink Floyd's The Division Bell. Then, those lyrics reminded me of what I exactly feel at times; about my behaviour towards the outside world, the fact that I enjoy my solitude and thus sometimes feel like an outsider when I have to communicate with others face to face (that's why my social skills on the internet are PERFECT unlike in real situations, when I have to talk). And the most important is that the lyrics reminded me of the way I describe myself in art: Like I used to be an evergreen tree and now I miss that. I mean....this song is completely me, it describes exactly the way I feel and the fact that I feel really happy when I am in Cefalonia at our nice summer cottage house. 

Then, I listened to the whole album: The Spirit of Autumn Pass (btw autumn, or fall for Americans, is my favourite season of the year). Furthermore, Troy Donockley plays the pipes towards the end of the last song: an 11-minute masterpiece, named The Gap is Too Wide. And what I realised in this album is that again it contained extended guitar solos, that mesmerised you. It was incredible! And the second thing that stroke me is something, which I actually write this post for. Mostly Autumn's music is absolutely simple and doesn't have ANYTHING sophisticated and extraordinary. 

Well, one could say that this isn't really positive. But for me it is. What I love and I really miss in nowaday's music is the simplicity and the purity. The fact that all these bands try to make a show-off by putting more and more complex beats, lyrics that sound too sophisticated and think that they are of a better quality than everybody else, is a bit boring and narcissistic for me. Music contests that search for THE top voice, that needs years and years of training to reach to a level, which I personally don't like that much. Mostly Autumn doesn't have that (And I think that Nightwish doesn't either and that's why I loved Anette Olzon's voice). Mostly Autumn sounds to my ears as the most easy-going band in the whole world. It seems like Heather Findlay (and also their present singer Olivia) doesn't pressure the whole thing. She doesn't force the sound to come out of her mouth. She sings completely naturally, and that's why the listener can understand her special colour and not technique. The same goes with the music. Mostly Autumn is a straightforward band, you listen to a direct sound, without them trying to give their best. They do what lies in their heart and soul.

The same goes for their music too. No complex sound, no complex tune etc. That's why some people in the Progressive Rock Facebook group I'm a member of, called them Mostly Awful and couldn't understand why they are categorised as Progressive Rock and not just stupid Pop Rock. Well, I bet that those people are completely simple-minded and think that the complex music is what makes bands more important. But this is not the case, I'm afraid. Mostly Autumn has this simplicity and this purity, which is so...ME! I know this sounds too emotional and too personal, but this is just what it is. Mostly Autumn is the music to my ears, anything I'd like to become and anything I'd like to write. If I were in a band, I would make exactly this type of music. I don't mean I would copy their sound. I only mean that I would work in the same simple way, in the same sceptical. This has a very big difference. I don't have any problem with weird keyboard sounds (on the contrary, I use a lot of them), but I think that a good musician should know how to make use of them. And I use a metaphor for that, where I draw a parallel between music and women's make-up. A woman might have used tones of make-up, eyeliner, eye shadow etc. but look beautiful, because of the WAY she has put these on her face. The same goes with the keyboards as well. You might have used loads of weird keyboards sounds but still sound beautiful, because of the way you have organised them. And Hammond Organ is not always the MUST sound in a Progressive Rock song. In my book with Ingrid, I have written a phrase where as a Hammond Organist, she says: Playing the organ in every song would sound absolutely stupid. So what I mean by all that is that I'm looking for this kind of music, the pure music, the non-forced one. And this is what I'm doing all this time I try to write my own music (and I do this even with Ingrid book which actually is a story of my imagination that started since I was 9, though it's changed waaay too much since) and that's why in the beginning of the post I wrote that for me Mostly Autumn is the most easy-going band of the planet. And I hope they keep on this track forever.

So, I will end this post by saying a big thanks to Mostly Autumn for making music industry better, as they are one of the few bands that just want to play the music in their heads and not just show off.

And there's a link of a website, where you can listen to The Spirit of Autumn Pass: https://myzcloud.me/album/702367/mostly-autumn-the-spirit-of-autumn-pass-1999

I hope you enjoy it, just like reading a good book.

I wish to you a nice evening.

Eireen Antypa.