Thumpermonkey keyboard player and guitarist Rael Jones has announced he will release a new classical solo album, Mother's Echo, on November 20. The follow-up to Jones' own 2013 solo album Mandrake, Mother's Echo was written following the death of Jones' own mother.
Outside of Thumpermonkey the Emmy-nominated Jones composes music for television and film and has scored the likes of TV's The Salisbury Poisonings and Harlots, documentaries on Coldplay and Oasis and films such as Les MIserables, My Cousin Rachel, The Festival and Everest.
"This is a deeply personal album for me," says Jones. "I’m attempting to translate emotions and life events into musical structures. The sketches for all the pieces were written in the months following my mother’s death. In some senses I lost her many years earlier. She was in a car crash when I was 6 which left her in bed a lot and changed her dramatically, forever. I was terrified she wouldn’t be there anymore."
Jones' Thumpermonkey bandmates Sam Warren (bass) and Ben Wren (drums) helped create the album's striking artwork, which you can see below.
"The artwork is based on a recurring nightmare I had repeatedly around this time," explains Jones. "I’m alone in my house being dragged inexplicably towards a strange figure - death in human form. It touches my shoulder, our feet lift off the ground, and we fly through the lounge, past my gathered relatives and out of the bay window... at which point I wake up. The cover shows what lies past that window. It’s not so scary after all."
