'Close-miked and immaculately recorded, each of the album’s 14 instrumental piano pieces glow, delicately, with intimacy and immediacy.' ★★★★ RECORD COLLECTOR

'This music is extraordinary. Oly Ralfe has produced a blissfully beautiful collection of tunes . Add this classic album to your collection.' ★★★★★ RnR Magazine

Meditative, melodic and quietly intense, Oly Ralfe’s debut solo album Notes From Another Sea casts a spell, enveloping listeners as it conjures its shifting moods. Oly says, 'I think of this album as a pathway through mysterious places; I hope it can unlock the beauty and strangeness of what’s around you. I see emotions as pictures and pictures as music, and each of these tracks is a conjuring of an indistinct yet intense place, and my music is the soundtrack to that. When I am inspired I find myself gravitating towards the piano, and through it I’ve opened myself up more than I have before.'

For Oxford-based Oly Ralfe, who has made albums as Ralfe Band since 2005, the piano is key to his love of music, and features on many Ralfe Band songs and instrumentals. 'Growing up playing the piano, I’ve always enjoyed the sensation of stillness and moving at the same time. Writing at the piano is almost like travelling into the unknown. I don’t need to go anywhere to be somewhere new and I don’t need to use words to say how I feel.'

True to this love of the instrument, Notes From Another Sea is Oly’s first album based entirely around the piano. 'A lot of the music I love is stripped back to just one or two instruments. I’ve always wanted to create an album with more space, with an intimate atmosphere. At first it felt a risky undertaking, but I was surprised by how natural the process became. It’s been great to form a clear simple voice through the power of a composition, the moment of the performance and the atmosphere captured in recording it.'

Capturing the right sound for each track was a vital part of the production process. To achieve this Oly used several different pianos, recording on a Yamaha upright at Strawhouse Studios in Oxford, an old Steinweg grand at Visconti Studio in London, and in his home studio a Eavestaff mini piano.

Oly says, 'It’s a challenge finding the right piano and space for each track and you can’t just put one under your arm and take somewhere! I discovered how unique all pianos are, from ancient uprights to a well-tuned grand, they’re all different and you really notice this on a solo recording. We’d position microphones close to the mechanical innards of the instrument to record it close up. I wanted to capture its actual presence; the wood, the hammers striking the strings and my hands on the keys. The imperfections in it evoke a moment in time and a sense of uniqueness.'

Equally, making use of the huge space of Visconti Studio creates an awesome natural ambience which shifts the album’s mood to a more expansive place at several points. Through further experimentation, Oly discovered the natural relationship between the cello and piano. 'The cello is such a powerful instrument and even one well-placed note can have great impact.' Oly collaborated with talented Oxford cellist Barney Morse-Brown (Birdy, Eliza Carthy, Duotone) whose intuitive playing adds depth and richness to a number of tracks on the album.

Notes From Another Sea opens with the expectant chords and emotive descending melody of ‘The Bridge’, progressing to the elegant minimalism of ‘A Forest In The City’ and the mysterious, romantic ‘On My Train’, circulating about an ethereal waltz motif with a darker undercurrent. The album gathers intensity with the slow-building classical ‘Glider’, slowing to the yearning of ‘The Swallow Sleeps All Winter’, twisting and turning in the half-light before ending on the elegiac ‘Hill Queen’.

Oly Ralfe’s music is often described as visual and cinematic. Oly adds, 'Having already written a soundtrack to the film Bunny and the Bull, I see this album as my soundtrack, a score to my own experiences.'