Piano Day 2017 Playlist

piano day

MorgenTau

from 'Nomad Frequencies' [CD|2xLP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den237
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/johnlemke]

An ardent moulder of sound, John Lemke began carving out a very unique music blend on his debut album 'People Do' (2013) and its follow up EP 'Walizka' (2014). Informed by his work as a sound designer & composer for documentary films and his natural inclination towards fusing rhythm with rich textures and emotive melodies, he set out on a musical path that had been long in the making and is ever evolving.

The quest for unusual, inspiring sound sources has always been at the heart of John's process, however the genesis of his second album 'Nomad Frequencies' was rooted in much more inadvertent circumstances. In the summer of 2014, forced to indefinitely evacuate his Glasgow flat and studio due to structural damage from one hour to the next, with nothing more than a laptop and a bag of clothes, John embarked on a six month odyssey of soul searching, couch surfing and spending an extended period of time in his old hometown of Berlin for the first time in years - it was to be an odyssey that would help ferment and distill the ideas of his second album on which work had just begun. 

A year of particular global turmoil and upheaval, combined with John's personal, albeit very minor, 'displacement', caused a lot of questioning, frustration and anger, which somehow found its way onto the new material: a more confrontational, at times aggressive sound, paired on the other hand with a yearning for harmony, balance and space. Other influences came less from the world of music, but rather in visual form, through the densely textural art of Anselm Kiefer and the political, yet poetic musings of film maker Adam Curtis.

Intent on refining his sound toward a more minimal, bolder style, John set out to limit his sonic palate to a handful of carefully chosen elements. At the centre of this new direction remains the muted piano already introduced on his debut, but in a much more purified and raw form. This organic base is adorned by the warm fuzzing and wavering of analogue synthesisers, tape echoes, meditative tuning forks, field recordings from John's 'exile' period and percussion based on his rigid approach to sampling, which started developing on 'Walizka'. The guiding principle of his orthodox style of recording and sampling is to only use home-made sounds by utilising his own field recordings, applying contact microphones or hydrophones to objects and instruments, running them through different kinds of speakers and re-recording the sounds to arrive at a 'lived in' quality, often misunderstood as plainly 'lo-fi'. Touches of viola and woodwinds parts (Kim Moore of WOLF and Andrew Baker respectively) provide melody fragments and subtle details throughout the journey.

With John's healthy disregard for genre boundaries, the array of influences on 'Nomad Frequencies' is vast, but never over-powering. From the meditative tuning fork that starts proceedings on 'Of Elsewhere', the dub echoes to the hints of minimalism, free jazz explosions to the Lynchian atmospherics, all elements serve nothing more than the album's narrative journey between friction and harmony, best appreciated in its entirety. A rhythmic backbone collides with rich ambience and melody, often infectious and jarring at the same time, forging a soulful whole which most likely only reveals its true self after multiple spins.

Nomad Frequencies

John Lemke - Vessel

This is a remix of Paper Unicorn from Ochre's album Isolette which actually turned into more of a cover version.  I've been a huge admirer of Chris' work right from his early demos - REM Sleep Research will always be somewhere in my all time top 10 electronica tracks.  

He's continued to release some of the most beautiful and intricate music in the field.  You can find the original of this track, and all his fantastic music at his bandcamp: http://bandcamp.ochremusic.com/

This cover version has been made available to download with the artist's permission.  Thanks to Chris, it's a wonderful piece and I had a lot of fun putting this together.

Unreleased

Paper Unicorn (Digitonal Transcription)

Ochre - Paper Unicorn (Digitonal Transcription)

first excerpt from upcoming 'elephant' by Dag Rosenqvist.

Cello by Aaron Martin
Saxophone by Lisen Rylander Löve
Mastered by Taylor Deupree

order here - https://dronarivm.bandcamp.com/album/elephant

Buy CD

Dag Rosenqvist - Come Silence (from 'elephant' CD)

Improvised, recorded and produced in Berlin by Sebastian Plano and Tom Adams.

2am is an improvisation for two pianos performed using a Yamaha CP80 and a C.Bechstein Mark B grand piano. It was recorded late at night as part of a longer series of piano improvisations by long time friends and collaborators Tom and Sebastian. 

Sebastian Plano: http://www.sebastianplano.com
Tom Adams: http://tomadams.eu

Image by: Hara Katsiki (FCB @HaraKatsiki, www.harakatsiki.com)

Berlin, 2am - (Tom Adams X Sebastian Plano)

4011 Liter is Henrik Schwarz's first ever released solo piano piece. Its part of his upcoming 4 track EP "WORKS PIANO" on the new label BETWEEN BUTTONS. Release will be available on vinyl and digital end of April 2017. www.betweenbuttons.com

Works Piano (between buttons demo)

Works Piano

Buy BB

Henrik Schwarz - 4011 Liter - version for 3 hands

For Piano Day 2017 I give you this little tune for Piano and Viola from the score for a documentary called Out Of Thin Air (coming later in 2017)

Viola: Karl Pestka

Slow Decay (Out of Thin Air - OST) Piano Day 2017

published for Piano Day 2017
of the upcoming album 'Chameleon'

www.lisa-morgenstern.com
produced by Sebastian Plano
mastered by Martyn Heyne
photo by Miguel Murrieta Vásquez

Codex

Matthew Bourne returns to the piano on ‘Candela (for Sascha Heeney)’, the first single from his forthcoming album, to be released this summer.

‘Candela' is a deep meditation in texture and melody: skeletal piano motifs buoyed on a bed of strings. There is an emotional directness and vulnerability that Bourne has only ever hinted at. When taken in the context of his back catalogue, this unadorned simplicity is a bold and challenging step to make, and all the more devastating for it.

Candela (for Sascha Heeney)

Free download

To coincide with Piano Day 2017 we share a cover of an old Penguin Cafe Orchestra song by Penguin Cafe from their upcoming new album 'The Imperfect Sea' - out on Erased Tapes 5th May 2017.

"This piece by my father has always been a favourite of mine and when we were playing in the studio last year with making rocks resonate through the soundboard of the piano, the drone on F# made me think of it immediately. The transition between free-form and structure allows for space and some more expressionist moments and then the simple yet rather beautiful melody creates a sort of profound optimism I think." — Arthur Jeffes

Pre-order 'The Imperfect Sea' on Vinyl, CD and DL here: phonofile.link/the-imperfect-sea

The iconic Penguin Cafe join the Erased Tapes family and open a brand new chapter to their unique world with new album The Imperfect Sea.

A penguin stands in the middle of a scorching desert, far away from its natural habitat. This mirrors composer Arthur Jeffes’ journey and exploration into a new musical territory. Penguin Cafe have evolved into something of their own at the hands of Arthur who started the band in 2009 with the continuation and homage to his father’s legacy, to the late Simon Jeffes’ Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Now, their upcoming album echoes reminiscent sounds that embrace the new.

The album title refers to a saying by his father that “we wade in a sea of imperfections…”, reflecting upon the idea that beauty can be found amongst the chaos. “If there is a narrative to the album it’s coming to the acceptance of the imperfections in all aspects of life; moreover, the recognition that these imperfections and tiny randomnesses are in fact what make up the best parts”, Arthur explains. This has also been highlighted by the striking cover artwork designed by FELD under the art direction of label founder Robert Raths, resembling a lone figure adapting to and accepting its surrounding environment.

Predominantly self-composed, the new album also features covers of electronic works by Simian Mobile Disco and Kraftwerk, along with a re-working of Simon's 'Now Nothing'. Arthur has developed from the traditional folk and jazz heritage Penguin Cafe Orchestra is known for into another realm of blissful ambience and dance music, recreated using strictly acoustic elements.

“For this album I wanted to effect a departure from where we’d been up to now. The idea was to create a musical world that would feel familiar to an audience more used to dance records but stay true to our own values. So we replaced electronic layers with real instruments: pads with real string sections, synths with heavily-effected pianos, and atmospheric analogue drones with real feedback loops ringing through a stone and a piano soundboard.”

On the day of release, the band will play a headline show at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, commencing the beginning of this new adventure for Penguin Cafe.

The Imperfect Sea

Buy LP/CD/DL

Penguin Cafe - Now Nothing (Rock Music)

MGMT mgmt@lisa-morgenstern.com
BKNG debbie@lb-agency.net

Codex

Lisa Morgenstern