Robert Miles - Discography

Buy

Info

Reviews

Robert Miles

23 AM

CD Album

Decon_BMG

1997

• 01. Introducing
• 02. A New Flower
• 03. Everyday Life
• 04. Freedom
• 05. Textures
• 06. Enjoy
• 07. Flying Away
• 08. Heatwave
• 09. Maresias
• 10. Full Moon
• 11. Leaving Behind

Also available on Arista, DBX, Happy Music and Urban Rec.

After more than 10 million records sold with the first album and singles...and with corporate champagne flowing and balance sheets healthily in the black everything seemed in place for an equally glittering second album to follow, aside that is for the one factor seemingly always excluded from such calculations, the wishes of the artist himself!

An essentially private man with a seldom-found integrity and devotion to his music, Robert Miles has poured his passion and energies, his very heart and soul into becoming many things over the years, composer, producer, musician, DJ, but one thing he has never had any interest in, indeed instinctively quite the reverse, is becoming a commodity and it was to the threshold of this precipice that he felt himself being pushed by label, management and media alike during the preparations for his second album '23 AM'.

Still inexperienced in the ways of the music business and feeling himself increasingly alienated from the people around him, Miles not only withdrew completely from the interview circuit (during the previous year he had been doing up to 15-20 interviews a day while promoting Dreamland) but also asked that instead of new photographs on the album cover and elsewhere he be represented by a black silhouette of himself to represent what he felt was his place in the pop-star system, "to suggest the insignificance of 'image' - music above everything else". One can only imagine the mixture of incredulity and horror with which this news was greeted in boardrooms around the world.

Now resident in London and distanced as far as he was able from the trappings of the fame-game, Miles meanwhile set to work on the music for '23AM';

"I wanted this to be a conceptual album; an album which would reflect the experiences and understanding gathered on my travels. 11 pieces describing the life cycle of a normal human being, such as I wanted to be - starting from birth, through the vicissitudes of everyday life, to maturity and finally to death. The scores were the translation into music of my state of mind at that moment: the desire to hold on to a normal life, to run away from those who wanted to overburden me; the need to be free again to give vent to my feelings."

Eventually released in November 1997, '23AM' (containing the resolutely titled single 'Freedom') was enthusiastically greeted by many of Robert's early fans and indeed is still cited by many as the preferred album of the first two. For a variety of reasons however it failed to repeat the sensational commercial performance of its predecessor. The artist's refusal to take part in any TV or radio interviews undoubtedly contributed and a spectacularly mishandled record company marketing campaign did the rest. The increasingly strained relationship between Miles and his record company and then-management had now been pushed beyond breaking point, with the inevitable acrimonious consequences.

Locked in a contract in which both record company and management had envisaged Robert Miles functioning as a kind of musical slot-machine, producing lucrative pay-outs of 'Dreamland' clones for the foreseeable future regardless of his own artistic needs, and seemingly unwilling to perform on any other terms, Robert was for a while at a loss to do next. The major label career which less than three years earlier had seemed so promising was not only in tatters but as things stood seemed set to stop him releasing any of the music he actually wanted to write for the foreseeable future, thus consigning not only his career but his own musical voice to oblivion. Was this all he had forward to after so many years passionately learning his craft?

There was only one thing for it and with characteristic determination he set about freeing himself from the shackles of the corporate machine. It would be a gruelling process that would take several years but eventually, at considerable professional and legal cost, Robert would win back his artistic independence. He was at last free again to get the music he wanted out into the world.

Robert Miles

23 AM

CD Album

Decon_BMG

1997