Holding On To Nothing
1st Single from Dear Darkness
Today I’m very happy to share the first single and video from the forthcoming Alpha album, Dear Darkness.
Every song begins somewhere, and Holding On To Nothing began with just two chords on an acoustic guitar.
At first there were some rough guide drums—not the ones you hear on the finished recording—but the rhythm and, more importantly, the feeling were already there. That’s often how songs arrive for me. They begin as sketches. I leave them alone for a while, and if they still move me weeks later, I know there’s something worth exploring.
When Hannah Collins came into the studio she immediately connected with the track. She sang a handful of vocal passes and, remarkably, much of what you hear on the finished recording comes from those first performances. Once a vocal finds its place, the music begins to grow around it. Instruments come and go, arrangements evolve, and the song slowly reveals what it wants to become.
The important thing is never to lose the original spark. It’s very easy to overwork a piece of music until the life disappears from it. I always think of it like gardening. You prune, you shape, you encourage it to grow, but you don’t cut away its roots. Holding On To Nothing certainly needed some careful pruning—those drops between the choruses became shorter and more focused—but the heart of the song never changed.
As strange as it sounds, I’m a much better music gardener than an actual gardener. My family would happily confirm that.
The accompanying video also has its own story. It was filmed in the beautiful University of Bristol Gardens, a place I spent countless hours as a child while waiting for my dad to finish work in the Physics Laboratories. He was never on time.
The film itself is intentionally simple. Hannah stands at the centre of it all, while I appear in the Pyrenees playing drums and the two basses that create the song’s foundation: an analogue SH-101-style synthesizer running in arpeggiator mode and my faithful Höfner violin bass. Nothing elaborate—just a visual reflection of how the music came together.
I hope you enjoy this first glimpse into Dear Darkness. There is much more to come over the next few weeks, and I look forward to sharing the stories behind the songs as we approach the album’s release.
Thank you, as always, for listening and for supporting independent music. It means more than you know.
— Corin
If you'd like to help spread the word about Dear Darkness, the official press kit is now available at Alphaheaven.com. You'll find artwork, photographs, the latest news, background information and everything you need if you're a journalist, radio producer, blogger, playlist curator or simply someone who'd like to share Alpha's music. Every recommendation, review and share helps independent music reach new listeners, and I'm genuinely grateful for your support.