Sierra Tracks Vega Trails

Inspired by the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains north-west of Madrid, his home since August 2022, Milo Fitzpatrick presents Sierra Tracks the new album from his expansive, cinematic, chamber-jazz project Vega Trails. 

Having cut 2022’s beautifully resonant debut album ‘Tremors in the Static’ as a duo, alongside saxophonist Jordan Smart (Mammal Hands and Sunda Arc), Milo now substantially expands upon that blueprint with his follow-up, ‘Sierra Tracks’, which, as the title suggests, was conceived at his new home in central Spain and adds piano, vibraphone and strings to the mix. The beautiful Spanish countryside offered inspiration too.

However while Sierra Tracks features an expanded line-up including pianist Taz Modi (a colleague alongside Milo in Portico Quartet’s live band) providing “some rhythmic movement behind us, to free up the bass and sax from being so busy” and vibraphone specialist Harriet Riley, multi-reedist Jordan Smart remains a key voice in Vega Trails. “Jordan has a really direct and exciting way that he connects with his instrument, and the audience,” Milo reflects. “He's into jazz, but also folk of many traditions, and he can play different wind instruments – soprano and tenor sax, bass clarinet, the dadouk, and the Ney flute from Turkey and Armenia. Knowing his phrasing, I wrote very much with him in mind.”

Milo also re-engaged with the cello, an instrument he hadn’t played since school days, adding an extra dimension to his own sound, but it was a conversation with Gondwana Records label mate, Hania Rania, about recording orchestral arrangements that helped bring Sierra Tracks fully into focus.  

A shaping influence on Milo’s vision for the record was David Toop’s seminal book, ‘Oceans of Sound’, and he perceived each track as an aural story. “I wanted to make sounds  that felt equal to where I’ve been roaming in the mountains and forests out here, that reflect the incredible scale of the place. You get these huge views and skylines, which it’s hard to find words for.” The curious sounds that open the album, at the beginning of ‘Largo’, are an approximation, by Milo on cello, of a harmonic series that is often heard in the Sierra region: when the local knife-sharpeners travel around the neighbouring villages, plying their trade, they play a similar riff on pan pipes to proclaim their arrival. “You get all these announcements, from people collecting scrap iron and steel, or delivering fruit and bread, and I thought that kind of thing would make a good opening for the record.” With that colourful reference as an overture, ‘Sierra Tracks’ shapes up as a love letter to the rocky landscape within which its creator now resides. It is also, he says, about his mental-health journey out of the pandemic years, which have been so testing for us all. 

“I had been thinking about Time, and how history repeats itself, but also how one can become trapped in thoughts, especially on difficult personal subjects, and how these become cyclical in our minds. But I also wanted to talk about how walking or running can help release oneself from these cycles and find clarity and order from tangled emotional thinking patterns. It’s like discovering a new path from your usual running route, and how that can  change your perspective and help find a type of peace and acceptance.” 

Through the album there are motifs and melodies that repeat from one tune to another, which of course resemble cyclical thoughts and memories. 

“So, to me,” Milo concludes, “this record is an exploration of the relationship between the complex, tangled world of one’s mental processes and how moving through the tangible world, especially through nature, can help find definition and clarity.” 

As such, ‘Sierra Tracks’ really is medicine for the mind, body and soul. 

Pressed on high quality black BioVinyl at Optimal in Germany for maximum sound quality.