Two years ago, Icelandic musician and composer Ólafur Arnalds embarked on a week-long project for which he composed, recorded and released one track a day, which he made available to download for free on a special page, promoted through social networks. To complement these, he asked fans to email him pictures inspired by the music. The tracks were subsequently released as Found Songs. This gruelling schedule has clearly not deterred Arnalds who, last October, pulled a similar stunt by recording seven new pieces in the living room of his Reykjavik apartment, this time adding a new layer to the project by filming his daily performances. The tracks were once again made given away on Arnalds’s website.
Playing piano on every track, Arnalds is here surrounded by friends and, on one occasion, family, who add string works and electronic touches. Continue Reading »
Peter Broderick continues to defy conventions with his latest release for Erased Tapes as he brings together various strands of his musical persona. Composed to accompany the documentary film Confluence, directed by Jennifer Anderson and Vernon Lott, Music For Confluence constantly shifts from beautifully crafted piano pieces to swelling orchestral motifs and folk-tinted compositions to create a truly cinematic soundtrack.
Confluence documents five mysterious disappearances which took place in the small town of Lewiston, Idaho, situated at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake rivers, between 1979 and 1982, of which only three bodies were ever found. Continue Reading »
In just a few years, Berlin-based pianist Nils Frahm has worked with the likes of Peter Broderick, Greg Haines, F.S. Blumm, Ólafur Arnalds or Deaf Center, but it is with his own work, released on Kning Disk, Sonic Pieces and Erased Tapes that he has gained recognition. With his new album, he explores a miniature nocturnal sound world where every sound of his piano is amplified to reveal its most minute intimate details. Here, he talks about his formative years, how it is easier to like the music created with others and the recording of his new album. Continue Reading »
How close does one need to be to an instrument to appreciate it fully? With his latest album, Berlin-based pianist and composer Nils Frahm uncovers a world of miniature sounds and noises which remain usually unheard, and places them at the core of this compositions, working with, and purposely seeking imperfections and defects to give his music a deeply organic feel.
This album was recorded at Durton Studio, the facility he runs in Berlin, for the most part late into the night. Careful to preserve the peaceful nocturnal atmosphere, and more pragmatically, avoid disturbing his neighbours, he muted the sound of his piano by placing felt between the hammers and the strings, and resolved to be as light-fingered as the music allowed. Continue Reading »
Kid Velo is like Daft Punk getting deep down and dirty with Clark. If the first Rival Consoles album, IO, released two years ago, was like a rollercoaster ride through the last twenty years of techno, acid, electronica and house, it appears that it was nowhere near enough to satisfy mastermind Ryan Lee West’s seemingly insatiable appetite for fun. For with Kid Velo, he turns the dance floor into a vibrant battleground where his heavy artillery fire glitter balls for the entire duration.
Right from the onset of the title track, which opens the festivities, the tone for the rest of the album is set. Continue Reading »
Ryan West is gearing up for the release of the second Rival Consoles album, Kid Velo, on the ever-excellent Erased Tapes in early June, and to whet your appetite, there is one new track revealed exclusively on a site each week. And this week, we’ve got Vos, the sixth track from Kid Velo, and it is a bit of a monster electronic tune, dirty-sounding, and utterly excellent! The album is out on 27 June.
The album’s launch party will take place at The Nest, Dalston, on 23 June, with Frog Pocket and Deadfader (Get tickets here)
In the last couple of years, Berlin-based musician and composer Nils Frahm has become quite a ubiquitous presence, appearing alongside a number of musicians or opening up his studio to them (Peter Broderick, Simon Scott, Greg Haines, F.S. Blumm and Deaf Center to name but a few), as well as releasing his own music on labels such as Sonic Pieces, Kning Disk, Hush Records or Erased Tapes with who he has recently signed.
Originally published on Hush Records and now benefiting of a full release through Erased Tapes, 7fingers is the first collaborative effort between Frahm and Anne Müller, a Berliner herself, and a cellist who has been experimenting with loops, electronics and textures in her performance for some time. Continue Reading »
Financial collapse and clouds of volcanic ash have replaced quirky experimental pop music as Iceland’s main exports in recent months, so it is good to see that, beside all this, life carries on as normal and this island, caught between the European and North American tectonic plates in the middle of the North Atlantic ocean, still delivers more than its fair share of progressive music.
One of the country’s most recent envoys is twenty-three year old composer and pianist Ólafur Arnalds who, in the space of one album and three mini-albums has started to make more than a splash on the international music scene. His last couple of projects have taken him in entirely different directions. On one hand, he set himself the challenge to compose, record and publish a track per day for a whole week, using Twitter as main vehicle to promote the work, and inviting listeners to post their own photos on a Flickr account as illustration to the music. Continue Reading »
Only a few months after Erased Tapes released Peter Broderick’s score for Adrienne Hart’s contemporary dance production Falling From Trees, it is the turn of Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds to present the work British choreographer Wayne McGregor commissioned for his piece Dyad 1909, which his company, Random Dance, premiered at Sadler’s Wells in London last October as part of In The Spirit Of Diaghilev, a series of performances dedicated to the creator of the famous Ballets Russes, which were set up a hundred years ago. McGergor’s Dyad 1909 is inspired by the great technological development between two expeditions to reach the South Pole, one, in 1909, on foot, and another, twenty years later, the year the Ballets Russes were dissolved, by plane. Continue Reading »
NILS FRAHM
The Bells
ERATP21
Erased Tapes 2009
11 Tracks. 40mins12secs
NILS FRAHM
Wintermusik
ERATP18
Erased Tapes 2009
03 Tracks. 29mins58secs
The Bells Amazon UK: DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD
Wintermusik Amazon UK: CD Amazon US: DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD
London imprint Erased Tapes continues in its quest to unleash some of the most beautiful music around with its latest signing, German pianist and composer Nils Frahm, who delivers not one, but two releases in as many weeks. During his formative years, Frahm studied piano with Nahum Brodski before going on to work on his own music. Based in Berlin, where he has established his studio and shares his time between production and composition, Frahm has already featured on a number of releases and has worked with the likes of Peter Broderick or Machinefabriek’s Rutger Zuyderveltd. Continue Reading »
In the last year, Twitter has become the hottest social network phenomenon around, and it was only a matter of time before someone used its format as part of a specific project. This someone is Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds who, in the space of seven days last April, composed and recorded seven original tracks, which were then made available, one at a time, on a special page on the Erased Tapes website, for free. Each day, the public was invited to post pictures on Flickr that they felt related to the day’s track. Some of these have now been compiled in a booklet accompanying this remastered version, now made available as a limited edition CD and 10†mini album. Continue Reading »
Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD Spotify: STRM
