Paul Archer is a painter but not in the traditional sense. Instead of a brush and oils he uses words and melodies to document his environment. And in Burning Codes’ world positivity abounds, redemption is always possible and hope is all around. Archer’s gift is that he is able to turn such lofty concepts into something so beautiful. Rivers of Hope is the third album to be released by Indiecater (Burning Codes and Burning Codes 2) and we feel privileged in having being part of the grand journey.
Rivers of Hope is available on CD (which includes an immediate high quality download of the album) or on download, either will suffice in bringing the full glory of this great album to your senses.
Paul spoke to us recently about the influences and inspiration for Rivers of Hope.
This past year has been on a personal level one of the most challenging of my life so far due to many personal circumstances and I have realised ever more what a tremendous and awe inspiring priviledge it is to have this life, this journey, these moments, this time on this planet, yet we know from the wonders of science that parts of our make up are formed far away from this planet in the vast cosmos.
Awe for me goes together with Hope and this past year has been a deep, powerful journey into and indeed with both. Sometimes we get so caught up in the minutiae of day to day existence we forget how significant this short existance is. Significant perhaps partly because it is so short when we think of the billions of years in our coming to this place. So from the vast awe and splendour of space here we are on this orb, each unique, each together across race, creed, cultures we travel this journey together and glimpsing a bigger picture along with the smaller surely can only enhance our perceptions, our being, our empathy, compassion and our hope one to another.
This record (as with all the records I have made) is a priviledge to have been able to make and especially so because of the events of this past year and because the project has continued to evolve, to grow, to metamorphosize, we were hugely honoured and priviledged to have Mr. Nathan Connolly from Snow Patrol playing on this record. Nathan (and Patrol) have been close buddies, trusted friends and incredibly kind supporters of this project from it’s inception (Gary had very kindly played the project on Zane Lowe’s show on Radio One back when I was recording the original first codes songs) and I have always had a profound respect for their work and for them all as artists. When I called Nathan and asked him if he would be involved he was incredibly kind and supportive and it is a tremendous priviledge to have his amazing playing on both Rivers Of Hope (the title track) and Only Gone.
Our sincere and profound thanks also go out to Carey and Steve from Athlete who have been incredibly kind and supportive also and given their amazing talents to this record also. Carey also co-produced two of the songs on this record as well as playing. These songs were Last Time and Switch. They are truly kind, caring and so very genuine, and it was once again a great honour and priviledge to have these truly great artists involved with the project and playing on this record and we want to also thank our manager Ian Mizen who has been and continues to be instrumental in taking the project forward.
My brother Iain (solo artist, Tired Pony, Reindeer Section, Ivor Novello winner and Snow Patrol collaborator) was also very kind and lent his incredible talents to this record also. Iain has been involved since the inception of the project on all the records and my profound thanks go out to him without Iain the reality is that today I would not be making music in the way that I am and it is a treasured and precious thing to have someone who is also your brother who you share such a deep musical connection with.
I would also like to thank all the other wonderful artists and musicians who we are now working with, Nick, Anna, Jeff, Jonny…. also Paul Martin and the students at Latimer Arts College Creative Diploma Group for their incredible, courageous and powerful performance work inspired by some of our sonic ‘codes’. I want to thank my whole family for allowing me to do what I do, to be who I am and I hope that the rivers of empathy, light, life, compassion, honesty, openness and joy which pervade the deeper nature of this record will be felt by all of you also. This record is really intended to be a celebration of who we are both as individual and as whole beings on our journey through this experience we call life together.
Videos
We Are Like Gold
Rivers of Hope