NOTEBOOK

Notebook, the third album by Brussels-based composer Macgray, brings together fourteen neoclassical and ambient piano compositions. Recorded largely in his home studio, the album draws its calm and intimate character from the soft, muted tone of felt piano. It takes the form of a musical notebook, each piece exploring a thought, an emotion, the memory of a person or a place. Together, they reveal the many things that inhabit our inner world, from love and quiet contentment to sadness and anxiety.

Following Journey to the Dawn (2020) and Collapse (2023), Macgray brings his longstanding interest in instrumental storytelling to a predominantly acoustic setting. Those earlier albums developed narratives through electronic and acoustic sound. Here, that attention to atmosphere and emotion finds expression through the closeness of the piano.

The album opens with For Alix and closes with Charles Sleeps, two pieces written for Macgray’s children. The music also evokes the landscapes around him: wheat and sunflowers in Fields, the meditative freedom of walking without a destination in Wander and the melancholy of the Belgian seaside in April Shore. The beauty of a place and the feeling of being there become inseparable.

Uninvited turns towards a more unsettled interior. One of the album’s two ambient works, it explores the unwelcome inner voices of anxiety: thoughts that arrive unbidden and can become frightening, even when nothing around us has changed.

Taken together, these pieces form a personal portrait through moments of love, unease, contemplation and peace. Notebook gives each of them time and attention, inviting the listener into the experiences behind the music, while leaving space for their own.

Soundcloud private link: https://on.soundcloud.com/a2LdbNBv0xygZopoqo

Email: info@macgray.eu