Nighttime at Gardner Hall is the product of a whole bunch of voice memos I took over the course of many years that all seemed to fit the same aesthetic. The collecting of recordings began years before the piece itself was ever conceptualized. I just enjoyed documenting the sounds I heard, especially ones that matched this certain feeling. I knew I wanted to use them for something, but I couldn't figure out what. In my mind they were a ball. It needed to be more of a string. The windchimes provided that structure. My Warm Blood, the closer off The Glow Pt. 2, was an influence. That song's eerie. A song like that or this can't go anywhere else but the end of the album. Pree Sisters off On Avery Island was also an influence.
NAGH wasn't the hardest track on the whole album to compose but it wasn't the easiest. Sorting through so many hundreds of voice memos was hard. Organizing them in a compelling way was even harder. Combining elements was helpful because it made the composition feel more deliberate, as opposed to just throwing the recordings down in a line.
Composing this song was so hard because it's kind of a different level of attention. Unfocused attention. It's ambient. It was really hard to decide just how ambient it should be. It's supposed to be meditative, and that means long times might pass with nothing really happening. But I also wanted it to feel like something was developing, like a climax was building.
The album ends with the first ever demo of Pinkerton. When I first found the chords to it. I felt like that was a nice way to tie things up. The leaves / windchime recording, that sound has always freaked me the fuck out. Ever since I was a little kid. Like, sleeping with the window open. It's a scary sound. It's just too overwhelming. It's like staring straight into the void. Like looking up into space. On a summer night, all alone, in the dark trees. Yuck.
Personnel:
Voice memos
Ashley Anderson - piano
Unknown musicians - everything else
Recorded at 24bit 96khz
Unmastered Version:
