L.E.T. Mixtape 003 | Marigold Sun
MARIGOLD SUN
Please introduce your self.
Hey my name is Eric Li Harrison. I’m an Australian musician currently based in New York City.
How long have you making music?
I’ve been making music in some form or another for over 10 years. It began in my early school years playing the piano and percussion.
'Marigold Sun' how did this name come about?
The name came about during Spring in New York in 2021. The name represents, to me, the beginning of a new creative project and musical journey. Marigold flower blooms are a deceptively diverse range of yellow, orange and red shades.
Swimming your debut LP tell us little bit about the creative process?
‘Swimming’ is a mixture of really old and new ideas. In 2016 I relocated to NYC from Australia and have been writing demos sporadically while settling into a new life abroad. Then 2020 happened and I turned to music more than ever as a means of distraction and maintaining my mental well-being. I also suddenly had time to look back on the music that I was making and think about a project/medium for sharing it.
The LP was recorded during the long winter of 2020/2021 between my home studio in Brooklyn and a friend's barn in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The songs that ended up making ‘Swimming’ are primarily piano based but I didn’t want to create a solely piano record. I still don’t consider myself a great piano player, certainly not classically trained or anything. I just love the character and mood that comes from piano mixed with electronic textures. My creative process often starts at the piano but sometimes it’s reversed and I’ll be inspired by an interesting synth layer and find a piano part that works with that. While recording ‘Swimming’ I was just starting to explore the wonderful and random world of modular synthesis. That’s been inspiring and I hope to keep working those sounds into my music. Ultimately, my goal for ‘Swimming’ was to create an immersive record, aspiring to reach that feeling of care-free weightlessness that one experiences when floating in salty water.
How do you unwind when your are not working on Music.
Local bike rides around my neighbourhood are always great. My ideal break though is to take a long hike through the mountains and find a watering hole to dip in. Nature is the place!
The playlist you have curated give us a little insight into your selection.
Many of the songs selected for this playlist were on high rotation for me while recording ‘Swimming’ and a source of continual inspiration. They’re a collection of piano instrumentals, melodic ambient tracks and other beautiful sonic textures perfect for tuning in or tuning out to. I’ve also included some recent favourites from the past month or so.
Listen along on Spotify now.