My first ever project, Yellow Gloves, is out now everywhere!

Yellow Gloves is an ambient instrumental passion project that I created over the summer of 2023.

I first fell in love with ambient music through discovering underground ambient records from the 80s and 90s that had buoyed into historical relevance through YouTube uploads. I often wondered what these composers would think of the tens of thousands of people deeply resonating with their music across the globe past midnight. Being one of these people, specifically one studying Music Technology and with access to Logic Pro, I began making some ambience of my own.

At first, I didn’t plan to create a project. I made ambient tracks to help me study, focus and sleep. But in early July, I woke up from a nap where I had dreamed that my yellow cleaning gloves were floating down Middle Black Clough Waterfall (which I visited in 2022). It was an image that soon became completely inescapable to me. I was fascinated by how strange yet comforting the motif was. Somewhere along the way, (probably because I couldn’t stop picturing it in my head), I decided to use the gloves as the backbone iconography of an ambient passion project.

I spent a good few months playing around with every sound I could dream up that helped actualise something cohesive. I was inspired by dreams, research on marine ecosystems, throwing out all distractions, forcing myself to feel bored enough to be inspired and more. Sun came about because I wanted to create something that ‘sounded like an opening track.’ It’s the only track on the record I don’t have an original demo for, because it was started and finished over the course of three days (largely held together by me adopting the philosophy “art is more important than sleep”).

I got my dad to drive me and my friend out to Middle Black Clough Waterfall to make it all a reality. The photos turned out even better than I expected, and visiting again after a year refreshed my memory on just how the waterfall made me feel, and informed the finishing touches of producing the mixtape. I tried to make it sound as though you were at the waterfall yourself, and hearing both natural and inexplicable electronic sounds from around.

My music was a complete surprise to everyone, bar a select few. I uploaded the project on the 14th, and it went live (to most platforms) on the 16th. I spent the first 24 hours just staring at its existence: 0 streams, 0 listeners, 0 views. I found a lot of peace that day. An invisible comfort surrounded me as I set my legacy in motion.

This project was conceptualised, sequenced, produced and mixed entirely by me. But I do have some special thanks:

to Robin Virag, who I hired to master the final audio for cross-format compatibility.

to Tim Murphy, my Music Technology teacher, who taught me how to produce music.

to Eddy Cooper, one of my best friends, who came with me to do the photoshoot.

And to my dad, who drove us out to the waterfall.

The sun is the genesis of all life, all life is the origin of all art.

All art is the origin of me.

Elliott