Time Falling

Debut indie-pop album featuring Kate Miller-Heidke: Time Falling. A kaleidoscopic concept album centred around the theme of infinity.

For the first time Michel focuses entirely on an indie/alt-pop electronic album involving the masterfully talented and versatile Australian singer song-writer Kate Miller-Heidke. Kate Miller-Heidke voice has been described by US singer-songwriter Ben Folds as “one of the best in the world”, she is a long-time collaborator of Michel van der Aa. Although classically trained, Kate followed a career in alternative pop music and is the only person to have sung at Coachella, the New York Metropolitan Opera and Eurovision representing Australia in 2019.

Michel’s trademark sound design of analogue synths, guitars, hypnotic rhythms, and dense tonal atmosphere combine with Kate Miller-Heidke’s powerful distinctive voice to create an album beyond genre with touches of experimental electronic, indie, a cappella choir (Netherlands Chamber Choir) and pop influence.

The album theme explores “Infinity”, in regard to ‘time’, and ‘space’; inspired by the writing of Jorge Luis Borges, Fernando Pessoa, Federico García Lorca, Emily Dickinson and scientific discovery.

Tracklisting

01 Mirrors At Night
02 Queen Of The Night
03 What A Dream
04 I Think Of Fire
05 Identical Hands
06 Let Me Go
07 Crimson Labyrinth
08 Asterion
09 19th Step
10 The Aleph
11 Asterion (A Cappella)

Credits

Written and arranged by Michel van der Aa
except ‘What A Dream’ and ‘Queen Of The Night’
written by Kate Miller-Heidke and Michel van der Aa

Lead and backing vocals – Kate Miller-Heidke
Choir – Nederlands Kamerkoor,
conducted by Boudewijn Jansen (1, 5) and Manoj Kamps (9, 11)
Guitars, piano, synths, and sounddesign – Michel van der Aa
Drums sounddesign, additional sounddesign (1, 2, 4, 5) – Thijs de Vlieger

Produced by Thijs de Vlieger and Michel van der Aa
Mixed by Thijs de Vlieger
Engineering, additional mixing, and pre-mastering by Bart Wagemakers
Recorded at Exalto Studios Haarlem
Mastered by Enrico Mercaldi at Time Tools Mastering
Lyrics research by Madelon Kooijman and Niels Nuijten
Album artwork and design by Vincent Meertens Studio

Music videos

Reviews

Ethereal beauty in Van der Aa’s indie-pop

★★★★★ (5 stars)

Just as the Aleph from the Borges story is a point where all points of the universe coincide, so Michel van der Aa’s head is perhaps the place where all kinds of music come together. The 49-year-old composer, who already demonstrated in his internationally successful opera Sunken Garden not to be averse to a surreal techno beat, has now released his first indie pop album, Time Falling.

The star of the album is singer Kate Miller-Heidke who performs vocals of an ethereal beauty, often in multiple layers, on lyrics by Borges, Pessoa and others. Underneath Van der Aa lays a smouldering weaving of bass lines, synths and guitars, with patches of choral music.

– De Volkskrant, 5 March 2020, Frits van der Waa