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This month…
• a free piece
• website update
• countdown to the “until the light was gone” release
• new, new music
• some recommendations
Free Piece
It's been a really busy month, and although I have written several new pieces, I haven't had time to record any of them in time for this newsletter. So this month's free piece is an old tune of mine that has always seemed to be a popular one - “Dark Blue Wind”.
Most of my older pieces were transcribed in GuitarPro. I find all of those old scores painful to look at. Sibelius is so much cleaner. I am going to work on putting all of those GP transcriptions into Sibelius, so I started with this one.
You can find “Dark Blue Wind” on my “Unlike the Stars” album, as well as on the "Four Guitars" album I did with Will Ackerman, Trevor Gordon Hall, and Todd Mosby.
The piece was inspired by a Carl Sandburg poem…
Sleep Impression
The dark blue wind of early autumn ran on the early autumn sky
I revamped the store on my website. The individual notation/TABs section now has its own page. All 110 available pieces include a picture of the first page of the score, as well as a media player allowing you to listen to the piece. Unreleased pieces and arrangements have YouTube links so you can hear/see them.
Pieces can now be purchased directly through my website, and you will receive your purchased PDFs immediately.
If this interests you, please head over and take a look.
until the light was gone
“until the light was gone” releases on Friday, May 29th! Tom and I really hope you can listen to the album in its entirety so you can experience the arc and story of the music throughout the 14 tracks. We are extremely proud of this music. Here's what reviewers are saying about the album…
“until the light was gone plays less like a collection of individual compositions and more like a shared meditation on space, memory and quiet heart to heart connection. it's the sound of two artists discovering how naturally their musical languages intertwine—and inviting listeners to slow down, breathe and linger in the majestic stillness that arrives just before the light finally fades." -
“a stunning achievement in ambient storytelling…it is clear that eaton and downes are following a singular, shared muse, creating a seamless musical tapestry that demands to be heard again and again” - michael foster ~ ambient visions
“when it's not washing you away on a floaty warm river of sound, it catches you with lightly toe-tapping rhythms and hummable melodies…it's got that level of comfort, of ease, of pure environmental melty-ness. You just sit back and let it do its thing.”john shanahan ~ hypnagogue podcast
“…everything feels shaped by an almost narrative coherence, as if every sonic decision responds to the same internal pulse. from the treatment of space to the handling of silence, passing through melodies that achieve a delicate balance between the ethereal and the tangible.” - leandro torres ~ cyclical magazine
“there’s a shoegaze-adjacent haze in the way sounds overlap and diffuse, though the overall clarity remains intact. the result is a delicate balance between detail and distance, where each element is perceptible yet never isolated. every component—rhythm, melody, texture—feels aligned toward a shared intention. nothing appears excessive, and nothing feels missing. it’s a composition that understands restraint, allowing space to become as meaningful as sound.” - redazione ~ parkett channel
"imagine honey in all its sweet viscous splendor as a sweetly dark and reverberant sonic experience. that is the essence of until the light was gone from vin downes and tom eaton. a pristine exhilaration with extraordinary breadth and depth. james filkins ~ composer/guitarist/author
We hope you've had a chance to listen to the first three singles from the album. If you haven't heard them yet, click here.
We will be releasing videos for all of the songs on the album. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don't miss them. We have already put out videos for the first two singles, and the video for “the clearing” comes out Friday May 22.
Visit our website for more info, and please consider joining our mailing list while you're there. You can also pre-order a CD!
New, New Music
I recently made a quick trip up to Tom's Sound & Substance studio in New Hampshire. It was an extremely productive 7.5 hour day. I recorded 9 short solo pieces on my beloved McAlister guitar for an upcoming solo EP. I added some Nashville tuned guitar to a couple tracks on Ken Bonfield's upcoming new album. (I also recorded nylon string leads on a couple tunes a few weeks ago from home. Ken's new album is going to be killer!) After that, Tom and I started writing and recording a new tune for our next duo album, and then we signed some of our new CDs. All of this was capped off with dinner with Tom's family and of course, some time spent with Skip.
Recommendations
Here's some of what I've been listening to and reading…
Will Ackerman sighting in Bayonne! We were visited by Will and his wife Susan recently. It was wonderful to catch up and share some food and laughs. Thank you to everyone who supported the Windham Hill Winter Solstice 40th Anniversary Celebration Kickstarter. The campaign was a huge success. I am looking forward to submitting a new piece for consideration for the anniversary recording.
That's it for May. I hope you and yours are well. Thank you for reading these and for your continued support of my music.
