In an age of polished perfection and ceaseless output, "Sketches 1-17" by Christopher Colm Morrin offers a quiet, resolute rebellion. This double album is not about what’s been finished; it’s about what’s been felt. Morrin, a Dublin-born multidisciplinary artist whose work spans music, painting, poetry, and photography, invites us into a sonic journal - raw, meandering, and achingly sincere.

Born of solitude during a winter holiday in 2021, these sketches are the sound of an artist letting go of expectation, creating simply to exist in the moment. Using just a guitar, a few pedals, and his inner ear attuned to nuance, Morrin captures the ephemeral - the kind of beauty that arrives unbidden and refuses to be chased. These pieces are not songs as much as streams of thought, sonic meditations that ebb and flow like the river he evokes in his process.

What stands out most in "Sketches 1-17" is its unguarded honesty. Each track feels like a fragment of time captured on tape - a fleeting shadow of a feeling, a whisper given form. Tracks like "Sketches 1" and "Sketches 9" unfold patiently, their extended durations inviting the listener to sink deeply into the texture of sound. Meanwhile, shorter pieces like "Sketches 10" and "Sketches 11" feel like delicate pencil strokes - brief, yet rich with intention.

The music evokes comparison to the minimalist explorations of Loren Connors or the contemplative guitar meditations of Richard Skelton. But Morrin's work is less about evoking nature directly and more about the act of presence - of noticing the space around and within us. His use of pedals and effects creates subtle shifts and reverberations, like ripples across a pond, giving the album an organic, breathing quality.

There’s also a gentle ironic trick here. By presenting these pieces as "sketches", Morrin disarms the listener. He frees his work from the weight of expectation, and in doing so, creates something far more resonant. What might initially seem incomplete reveals itself as deeply whole - a quiet statement that sometimes a line, a gesture, or a moment of pause is enough.

Morrin’s artistic philosophy, rooted in process and observation, shines through. Like his visual art, these sketches eschew grandiosity in favor of intimacy. The album is as much a meditation on listening as it is a collection of sounds. It asks the listener: How often do we pause to hear the world, to hear ourselves?

The beauty of "Sketches 1-17" lies not in its complexity but in its ability to hold space for stillness. It’s a love letter to the act of creation itself, a reminder that art is as much about the process as the product. As Morrin sketches, he teaches us to sketch too - to embrace the unfinished, the imperfect, and the wonderfully human.

This is not an album for multitasking; it’s one for leaning in, for letting time slow down. Morrin’s sketches seem to whisper, "Come as you are, and take the time you need".