Founding member and chief songwriter of his prolific band The Pineapple Thief, Bruce Soord’s output and profile has grown substantially over the last decade. In addition to his own musical compositions, his exceptional production skills and coveted surround sound mixing has seen him delivering mixing work for acts including TesseracT, Opeth and Jethro Tull.

Inspired by the idea of finding inner peace, his latest solo outing Luminescence explores the difficulty of living in the metropolis of the modern world. Born from days exploring various cities whilst on tour, tracks from the album feature recordings from Soord’s various wanderings captured on his field recorder.

With acoustic guitar at the centre of the album, tracks such as ‘Lie Flat’ appear simple on the surface yet reveal Soord’s unmistakable intricacies throughout. There’s a variety of styles within though. The album’s lead track and single ‘Dear Life’ effortlessly encapsulates Soord’s unique sense of poised melancholy, while ‘Nestle In’ flirts with electronica. ‘Olomouc’s’ rousing strings work against the acoustic backdrop of Soord’s guitar to paint a vivid picture of the stillness that the record describes.

Recorded between January and June of 2023, the album was cut at Soord Studios with additional strings recorded at RAK Studio 3 in London, featuring contributions from Andrew Skeet, long time member of The Divine Comedy and musical producer of the orchestration on many films/tv shows from Netflix’s smash hit Black Mirror to David Attenborough’s Green Planet and Dynasties II. On ‘Luminescence’ Andrew arranged and conducted a six piece string section.