The Illusion of Beginnings & Endings

Simon McCorry is a cellist and composer from Gloucestershire, UK who has released music through the likes of Polar Seas, Naviar and Rusted Tone. He has also been a regular collaborator, most recently with anthéne, with whom he created The Equation of Time, released here on Whitelabrecs in May 2021. Simon has prepared a new solo album called The Illusion of Beginnings & Endings, which draws upon a body of work he composed for a contemporary dance film production. For this release, Simon has worked once again with visual artist Tom Tebby, who has designed the packaging around imagery techniques using a camera and paper. The result provides a stark and obscure focal point, which projects itself into the cinematic textures of this album. The concepts and ideas behind The Illusion of Beginnings & Endings are based loosely around ambition. We all have different views on ambition and what this means for us, and the artist states that their preference is to live for the moment. This album reflects that this idealistic view on the world is at odds with a society that pushes us to constantly strive for a brighter future. To some, this is a grey cloak of fear; a fear of failure or underachievement. To others, taking stock might be hard. The drama of this sound, its deep pensive cello, pulsing modular synth movements and transcendent piano, provides a space in which we can ponder upon our own ambitions. The lens through which we see ourselves may differ from one person to the next. Perhaps you will feel an urge to be present, or the opposite; an urge to feel vacant? Either way, the weight of our own ambition may feel that bit lighter as a result, as we decode the contents of this album. -“You can never get outside it; you must always turn back. There is no outside; outside you cannot breathe. Where does this idea come from? It is like a pair of glasses on our nose through which we see whatever we look at. It never occurs to us to take them off”- (Ludwig Wittgenstein)