For the title track of the album, Director Phil Barber created a video exploring the landscapes of Yorkshire which I grew up surrounded by. As part of the research for the album, I travelled back to Yorkshire where we found a World War 1 Sound Mirror embedded in the Yorkshire Countryside. Used as a early warning device to detect incoming aircraft from Germany in the First World War, it had a strange connection for me.

Director Nic Kane plays with abstract storytelling and striking visuals, to explore Berlin based musician Simon Goff’s Yorkshire roots.

A Process in the Weather of the Heart maps out moments of connection between past and present, former and future self, and distant yet tethered lands.

Transport links, trails and traces etched into the environment, and the subtle influence of the wind, orientate a lone figure across the Yorkshire landscape of Goff’s youth. Their feet connect and lift from the earth beneath them.

A viaduct, a human-made structure embedded in the land to facilitate movement and journey, echoes their rhythm. Flashes of a concrete sound mirror, situated on the East Yorkshire coast, listen across the North Sea to whispers from Germany.

The project, through it's own shifting processes, evolved to focus on a simple yet evocative expression of journeying; a navigation of time, space and creative process.

Featuring Sophie Hutchinson
Director Nic Kane
Producer Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp
Director of Photography Matt Gentleman
First Assistant Camera Aidan Bryan
Movement Director Lizzie Klotz
Costume Grace Nicholas
Production Assistant Josh Doughty
Colourist Matt Gentleman

Wooden Islands was one of the first tracks I wrote for the album and marked my discovery of a sound I wanted to explore. This album has marked a process of discovery about making music with my primary instrument the violin. 

For many years my relationship to this instrument was a somewhat turbulent one. The violin is an exquisite instrument, one of precision and perfect balance on such a fine scale, that requires meticulous attention to detail from both the maker and the player alike. It has and continues to fascinate me. 

While I love it so much and have had so much joy from playing it, the pressure that surrounded my study of the instrument caused sometimes crippling stage fright that made me loose control of my bowing arm. No matter how much I practiced, sometimes my arm would shake and I would not be able to keep it on the string. My experience of this at college made for a very isolating experience, studying for hours a day in a room on your own, to then stand on stage in a masterclass and be judged on a performance where you would sometimes not have control. 

In the string class we worked in the pursuit of learning to master this beautiful instrument. We were all together, but simultaneously alone. We were all on our Wooden Islands. 

After moving to Berlin I started to work at Vox-ton studio where I learnt to engineer and was welcomed in to an amazing community of musicians and composers who all work in and around the studio. It has been an eye opening and affirming experience that has contributed to this journey that Vale is a landmark in. I have found that the studio, like the violin is another fascinating instrument that you can loose yourself in.

In support of the single, photographer and film maker Jubal Battisti made a film of me performing and recording the track at the studio. 

I filled my lungs with the necessary air, and yelled!

For the first single from Simon Goff’s new album ‘Vale’, directors Andrew Mark & Ben Evans James created a film in which they adopted a filmic approach that mirrors the track’s composition of classical strings and digital effects. The film brings together analogue 16mm film footage with digital processes and 3D animation.

Gait

Second video in support of ‘The Bit’ released on Gizeh in 2020.

HUE

(Audio Visual Album)

To accompany the release of my 2016 album HUE, I worked with Sebastian Kite to create a set of videos inspired by the material we made in the installation from which the music was taken.