These are strange times...but as we retreat indoors, the air clears, and the planes stop flying, one upside comes in the flourishing of wildlife in our cities. Stubbleman (aka maverick producer / songwriter Pascal Gabriel) has been inspired by the increase in birdsong floating in through the top floor window of his London home, and, in response, has created a suite of new pieces: The Blackbird Tapes.

Each of the three tracks is based on a field recording of blackbirds singing at different times of day over the last three weeks. He has taken the melodies, harmonies and atmospheres evoked by the recordings and used a minimalist arrangement, simply overlaid with upright piano and analogue synth, to create these beautifully meditative and mesmerising compositions.

Meanwhile, most tracks from Stubbleman’s Mountains and Plains album are gradually being revisited by a series of remarkable collaborators: reconstructions by Simon Fisher Turner, Penelope Trappes, Aksak Maboul and Miss Kittin (on May 8) have already been released, and several more will follow.   

Recap: After spending decades writing and producing tracks for acts ranging from ’S Express to Miss Kittin, Inspiral Carpets, Can, Wire,  Kylie Minogue and Dido, Pascal Gabriel has gone back to creating his own music. He re-embraced his adventurous electronic ambient past with a magnificent instrumental album, Mountains and Plains (released under the Stubbleman project name), combining a cinematic mixture of found sounds, field recordings, modular synthesisers and piano. He started performing the music from album in concert, backed by an orchestra of self-designed, computer-controlled automatons, which he built from recycled objects.