The origin of NIGHT of 21 HOURS is written on their Bandcamp page:
By the winter of 2020, approximately 9 months of COVID related isolation had started to wear on me. That’s when this started.
The credits on ISOLATION, their album released in February 2021, as listed on Bandcamp read:
written and produced by Mark Schlipper
performed by his computer
NIGHT of 21 HOURS is a modern collaboration. An exercise in which Mark Schlipper channels his thoughts and feelings into compositions which his computer then translates. NIGHT of 21 HOURS evokes feelings associated with this last year of disease, uncertainty, anxiety, and loneliness.
“Flight Risk” opens with a staccato electric drum pattern that repeats with the precision of a well-practiced roofer with a nail gun, hoping to get away from the hot summer sun. The drums are joined by a heavily distorted industrial guitar or keyboard voice that plays a few notes as it feels out its place among the raptap of the drums before settling into a dirty and driving groove. The instruments lock in, more effects are piled on, and the track takes off. The playing on “Flight Risk,” its structure, the seemingly intuitive nature in which the instruments communicate with each other, all have an organic quality that drench the piece with emotion. Mark’s computer is clearly an accomplished player and interpreter of music.
“Flight Risk” is powered by an urgency and a need to get somewhere. It is not a song about staying still. It is a song seeking an escape from isolation. Many of us are closer now to our desired destinations than we were just months ago when NIGHT of 21 HOURS was born. As such, it is a perfect coda to their album ISOLATION.