THE DRAWING BOARD II
Release Date: January 8th, 2021
1.Books
2.City
3.Fences
4.Letterbox
5.Grass
6.Festival
7.Carpet
8.Room
9.Keys
10.Fireplace
11.Drama
There is always the drawing board.
The Drawing Board II was written between June and November 2020, taking much longer than the first Drawing Board. Tracks were added, removed and revised constantly, right up to the last minute.
It is a reminder to myself that things can always be simpler.
The Drawing Board II is about simplicity.
"City"
Growing up in the suburbs, going to the city was a journey for me. It was a completely new world, something to look forward to, exciting and fun. Somehow this feeling never really left, even as I went there more often. And I have found this feeling elsewhere since.
This song is about this sense of wonder.
"Books"
One of my favorite places growing up was the library. The number of books I read was borderline illegal. I would always have a book with me at all times, even in the shower. It is possible. As with everything I enjoyed, after consuming it for a while, I began producing. I wrote a lot.
As I grew, this habit was replaced with other passions. But I still read a book or two occasionally, because there are places that only a book can take me.
"Letterbox"
We had a stone letterbox that I would sit on during the summer. I would wait for the postman to come around and I would help him open it. Then I would take them back out and see if any of them were for me. None of them ever were. But waiting was fun.
"Festival"
We never had a real christmas tree, only a fake one that was brought out every year. Decorating that plastic thing was the most creative thing I would do all year. I would find places on it for all my toys to peek out of, and by the end of it the tree looked like it had dropped out of a tornado.
"What we have here, then, is an album that relies solely on the interplay between two hands and the creativity of the mind directing them in order to work magic, mining an instrument that humans have been playing and perfecting for some three hundred and twenty years to tell those stories and produce something new and incredible. A daunting task, but Chan’s remarkable compositional talents are clearly more than capable of meeting the challenge and have produced a breathtaking record which fully merits Album of the Month."
