BAVARIA
A new piece is up! I’ve added Bavaria, Germany, to the Echolocation album. Log in/sign up at www.georgehurd.bandcamp.com. I hope you enjoy it!
I went in a different direction this time, departing from the percussive wall of sculpted electronic sound that is Oslo in favor of a more tranquil acoustic piece. It had to be this way though – this is the sound I experienced while settling into a 3-week stay in rural Bavaria in the south of Germany. It’s the home of my wife Anna’s family – a small 900-year-old walled city perched on the edge of the Ries meteorite crater 2 1/2 hours NW of Munich. It’s a quiet, beautifully pastoral place, with hazy green hills rolling out beyond the town walls, church spires that spike up across the horizon, and dense emerald forests that are weirdly similar to every fairy tale you’ve ever read.
Originally entitled “Wanderlust” – this piece is a solid representation of how I was feeling at that time, constantly welling-up with a sense of possibility for this place, this region, which I’ve come to view as my second home. I love visiting and am filled with creative energy every time I return. I started writing this piece immediately after the nightmarish nine-timezone jetlag wore off, the excitement for my travels and exploring this part of the world bouncing around inside of me every day. And I wrote most of it while sitting outside the house, seeing what you see in the picture below.
I recorded the flute part with my wife’s oldest friend, Regina Graf, who is an incredible multi-instrumentalist and teacher from Munich. We recorded her takes in a matter of minutes, and even though she was sick at the time, her performance was spectacular. The flute really is the heart of the piece, accompanied by steel pans, piano, harp and celeste that dance and ripple around it.
Thank you, truly and sincerely, for subscribing. It’s what is making this music possible and I’m unbelievably grateful for it.
Subscribe and listen to Bavaria below:
GALLERY
The dense, fairytale-esque forests surrounding Wemding, Germany.
Downtown Wemding. The church towering above it from the center of town.
Wemding town square. Ancient but incredibly well-maintained buildings wrap around the city center. The church bells ring every hour and can be heard for miles.
One of Wemding's two Stadtpfarrkirche St. Emmeram bell towers at night. I took a quiet walk inside the city walls late one night to get a clean recording of the bells, free from the daytime sounds of people and cars.
Sun-drenched lunchtime postcard writing with Anna from a cafe in the Wemding town square. One of the down sides of long-term travel in Germany is beer feels like the right choice ALL the time. In the end we went with coffees over beers, but it wasn't easy.
Going on a run to the village of Nördlingen. These yellow flowers fields stretch on for miles here. Apparently they're grown to make oil for machine use. A fact I found disappointing for how beautiful they are.
Just another day in Bavaria.
Castle Harburg. On a hill that rises high above the surrounding area, it's a really beautiful place to explore. We took a guided tour. Equal parts aristocratic ballrooms and nightmarish torture chambers. Fascinating nonetheless.
Sunset overlooking Wemding and the gargantuan 15-mile wide Ries meteorite crater from 14 million years ago.
