Distant Activity is my first full-length album, released independently in September 2008. You can listen to and buy it from here.

This is the debut album from Adam Fielding, and is the culmination of several years of songwriting, experimentation and production. Adam has been writing music since the mid-nineties, constantly refining his own unique brand of alternative electronica – an evolution acknowledged by this album\’s playful juggling of sub-genres.

Citing influences such as Hybrid, BT, Boards of Canada and Jon Hopkins, the songs cover a broadrange of styles and tastes ranging from breathtaking ambient soundscapes, atmospheric dance tracks and synthpop-esque numbers – all while retaining an emotional context through a synthesis of orchestral elements , vocals, sweeping synths, piano and guitar.

Adam has created a unique work of intense, atmospheric songs that should be a welcome listen to those both familiar with and new to electronic music.

In late 2007, during the creation of The Dawn EP I became more and more interested with merging familiar styles of synthpop, downtempo and ambient music with a more progressive, semi-breaks driven sound. I had been writing music in a similar sort of vein since late 2006, and after experimenting with a more chilled sound decided that this was absolutely the direction I wanted to pursue for my first full length release. I was becoming more and more fascinated by melody-driven dance music at the time and decided to fuse this with my already existing synthpop/atmospheric-driven sound.

The album really started to take form with the production of the title track in January 2008. The bulk of the production occurred during my placement year at university, working primarily within my humble bedroom studio at the time which essentially consisted of me, my laptop, Reason 4, an orchestral sound kit, a microphone and a guitar. As the album continued to take shape I found myself drawn towards themes of finding beauty in darkness as well as light, isolation and redemption. This led to the album taking on a heavily introspective, contemplative tone, forming a steady emotional undercurrent to the album itself.

The songs themselves were taken from a mixture of existing tracks (re-worked to fit with the style and mood of the album) and new tracks written and produced during 2007-2008. I sent the album as-is to several labels during its creation and, after receiving little to no response, decided to stop wasting my time and release the album independently initially. I genuinely believed I had created a body of work that suitably summed up my influences and experiences prior to that point, and was desperate to share it with anyone who wanted to listen. A combination of Magnatune, CDBaby and a short-run CD copy provided me with the means to get my music out there to anyone who wanted to listen. I decided to focus my efforts on what I knew best – writing and producing music. At the time I didn’t fully appreciate the amount of work and effort that would go into releasing a record independently, but I’m still incredibly glad I did.

Distant Activity was officially released in September 2008, just before I commenced my final year at university. Things came full circle when it was picked up and re-released digitally through Distinctive Records in late 2010. A selection of out-takes from the Distant Activity production sessions was released on March 7th 2012 as the free EP Background Activity.