Acclaimed composer and pianist Poppy Ackroyd returns with “Liminal”, her intimate new album released via One Little Independent Records. Written and recorded during a period of profound upheaval and transition, it marks a return to the core of Ackroyd’s practice, bringing piano and violin back together.

For the first time since 2019’s “Feathers”, Ackroyd reunites these two instruments exclusively, with every sound on the album drawn from piano and violin alone. Melody, harmony, rhythm and texture are all extracted from the physical bodies of the instruments themselves, from bowed and plucked strings to percussive elements. Working within these limitations remains central to her creative process.

“Liminal” was written unusually quickly for Ackroyd, composed over a three-month period in which the core structures and musical ideas were laid out. Recording took place shortly after, once she had moved into a new studio space. Piano and violin improvisations were captured alongside scored material, then carefully edited over time. This process of sifting through improvisations to find small, human moments has always been part of Ackroyd’s approach, but here she chose to leave more of the raw material intact, preserving its cathartic qualities.

“In the last three years everyone I loved most in the world needed me, all at once,” she explains. “There has been new life and death, heartbreak and many other things that are not my stories to tell. I have also moved across the country to a part of the world I have never lived in before.”

Although the album emerged from an exceptionally difficult time in her life, it is guided by a quiet sense of resolve. Ackroyd describes listening to the album while running and feeling herself almost dancing along to it, discovering a joy that was not always present while writing. “I had such a chaotic few years, but the only way to cope was to allow things to be messy,” she says. “Embracing the messy and imperfect but still getting things done. I decided to apply this approach to my music making and I found that I still maintain the same attention to detail but without the pressure, and I fell in love with making music again in a whole new way.”