Mackenzie, Daniel W J

Return Written Arrange

Label: Runningonair Music Country: UK

"Daniel W J Mackenzie is perhaps best known for his work as Ekca Liena, a droning guitar and electronic mesh of ambience, electronica and hints of doom. This alias has carved it's place in the UK ambient underground. In addition, Daniel also records and performs with psychedelic drone outfit Plurals. Under his real name Daniel explores styles that are more intimate - his well received debut self-release Teeth Sleep Under Winking Black Eyelid is a melancholic and cinematic close focus study of the humble piano - and, in this case, rather more calculated conceptual works.

The core of Return Written Arrange uses input from a variety of musicians who were asked to provide sound recordings of their choice from a selection of musical pitches and durations of Mackenzie's own design. These were arranged in the order of when they were sent back and the resulting sequence was duplicated in a way that corresponded with the Fibonacci sequence, subjected to minimal production and compositional enhancements and left as semi-aleatoric pieces, as much constructed by chance and choice as they are bound by the rigidity of the sequence.

Surrounding the two main conceptual pieces (Return Written Arrange i and ii) are a series of shorter tracks intended to provide much more human counterparts. These feature the kind of sombre improvised piano that runs through Teeth Sleep... tinkering amid atmospheres drawn from the other tracks and words from Irish poet P. Scanlan. Together the different elements form a mysterious, enchanted and possibly unsettling release that speaks as much for the soul's significance in musical composition as it does the mind's."-Runningonair Music