Softly Touching Ground

This year, piano and coffee turns five, and to celebrate, we are releasing our first compilation: Realismo Mágico — a conceptual project featuring unconventional works by new and old friends we have made along the way.

Inspired by magical realism, an artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy, this special release presents unheard material by twelve exceptional musicians — from experimental sound artist Martyna Basta to award-winning film composer Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres, and from poly-instrumental duo Brueder Selke to prolific pianist and producer John Hayes.

Each artist has contributed with a new track that invites the listeners to submerge into their very own musical universes, which, at the same time, have been re-shaped by their interpretation of magical realism. We start off on our journey with the delicate nostalgia of Tim Linghaus, passing through Jakob Lindhagen and Vargkvint’s modern take on the story of a Norse mythological creature, followed by the harmonic ambiguity in Simeon Walker’s pleasingly strong dialogue between felted piano and drums. Later on, John Hayes shares with us a chaotic composition born out of samples from an old clock in his parents’ garage and saturated voices, which precedes Lucy Claire’s processed hydrophone recordings of seaweeds and starfishes in Australian waters. Ondes Martenot, pump organ, zither, analogue synthesizers, vocal processing, musical saw, and bowed gongs are some of the unusual elements to be found on this eclectic yet coherently unified record.

Realismo Mágico has been conceptually crafted and musically curated by Peruvian composer Sergio Díaz De Rojas, and beautifully depicted by illustrator Jordan Amy Lee and graphic designer Celia Fernández González.

Lucy Claire - Kelp

Allude

Following the warmly-received Paces (1631 Recordings/Decca Publishing) and the collaborative Stadsbilder (Time Released Sound), Swedish composer and multi-instrumentalist Jakob Lindhagen presents his second solo full-length album Memory Constructions on piano and coffee records.

Recorded together with German brother-duo Sebastian and Daniel Selke (aka CEEYS, whose collaborations also include Ólafur Arnalds and Spitfire) and longtime artistic collaborator Sofia Nystrand (Vargkvint), the album merges elements of neoclassical and ambient music, with a foundation of intimate piano works paired with violoncello and vocal synth, expanded with musical saw, kantele, bowed glockenspiel and sound experiments, recorded to analogue equipment. 

”Memories are an equally complicated as fascinating aspect of the human mind. After realizing a couple of memories from my childhood surroundings simply didn’t add up - the timeline didn’t make sense so I couldn’t have been in that place at that time, or a block of houses not being placed where they actually were - I became slightly obsessed with memory research. Our memories play such a huge part of our identities, yet they are extremely unreliable, change and fade over time, and are easily influenced and manipulated. And yet I couldn’t help myself also finding beauty in the fact that I both completely trust and distrust my own memories, that make up who I am. So digging from these slightly contradicting feelings, and from where my own memories are either constructed, fading, forgotten, rewritten, made up or completely true, this album was concieved.” 

Memory Constructions has been supported by the Swedish Arts Council, and is coming out digitally and on limited edition vinyl on the 23rd of September, featuring artwork by Sofia Nystrand and desing/layout by Celia Bayo.

Purchase

Jakob Lindhagen - Tomorrow

Track from feature length documentary "Skörheten" (Fragility)

Varför mår jag dåligt?

The Commonplace for solo piano. Composed for Piano Day 2016

www.jeffchipman.com

The Bleak Midwinter

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The Commonplace

This track was written by 15 Afgani and Syrian refugees living in Vingåker, Sweden. Cellist, Naomi McLean and I spent 2 days running a music project with them. We learnt songs from around the world, taught music production techniques and visited a recording studio. What was produced is a brilliant collaboration, a mix of several musical styles, different languages. Music has no boundaries or borders. 

We want to go back and do the same project but BIGGER AND BETTER! We want to provide these young people with the means to continue creating music, we want to buy them a recording set up and teach them how to use it, so their voices can be heard. Several of the young people are talented singers and rappers, writing and creating their own lines. They need to have a way to express themselves and having their own studio set up would mean so much to them.

If this track touches you and please head over to:

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/frihetmusicproject

and donate what ever you can so we can bring music to young people who need it the most.

Thank you so much! 
xLucy Claire

'Frihet : FREEDOM' By Ung:Integration Boys, Sweden.

A simple, descending piano amble based around A. Recorded with James Everingham's Woodchester Piano.

Drop me an email mark@markwhitemusic.co.uk if you'd like a copy of the sheet music.

Woodchester Piano: http://fracturesounds.com/product/woodchester-piano/

#pianoday2020

Piano Works is the second installment of Lucy Claire’s ‘Works’ series. It is an eclectic take on what piano music can be. Featuring cellist Ren Ford (Keaton Henson’s Romantic Works) and violinist Marie Schreer (The Royal Northern Sinfonia) and surrounded in atmospheric binaural soundscapes, the piano is far from lonely. The work features a collection of pianos from grands and uprights, to electric keyboards, toy and thumb pianos. It is grounded in the real world but hints strongly at the magical and supernatural, it absorbs, transports, then delivers you back to reality with new perspective.

Nettle

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1qw2Z2Lcs1YAx6zxih1yEJ?si=-u_oumWVSi2HXjCMHopkzA

My contribution to Piano Day 2019 and played live for the first time at AfrikaBurn 2019 (State of Bliss on Saturday 1-2 am)

Here is a dreamy piano piece which started as a short improvisation thinking about my AfrikaBurn experience. After having had four improvisation bars resting in the drawer for months I re-listened one morning and finalised this piece within an hour, simply following my heart and emotions at that very moment. It stops as abrupt as a dream.

The current version, however, is a remake posted April 7, 2019 with less 16th notes.

I grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark, and believe it has a very danish sound to it - whatever that is.

Enjoy <3

Bjørn-Henrik Zink - Tankwa Daydreaming (Piano Day 2019)

When I was commissioned to write a piece for orchestra in early 2018, I had my concerns at first. For me an orchestra is some sort of a controversial beast, that origins from another time and is hard to be tamed, yet it is one of the western culture's most admirable achievements, that should be taken along to the 21st century. 
As an artist the freedom to express my thoughts in the most honest and genuine way without being constricted by structures and other people's mindsets is very important to me. As a composer though, I am aware that my art is not able to become alive without the hard work and - in the best case - love of other musicians. The more musicians are needed for a piece, the more minds need to be convinced. And this puts a composer in a complicated position, because you need to write music that is comprehensible for the musicians, but at the same time this should not keep you from exploring and writing down unusual ideas. Especially in the case of composing for an orchestra, which needs quite some abilities in terms of craft, escaping from tradition is even more difficult, also taking into account the very restricted rehearsal time (1 hour in this case). This makes composing for orchestra an insanely humbling and challenging undertaking - which is exactly what I ended up loving about it!

'Frihet : FREEDOM' By Ung:Integration Boys, Sweden.

Lucy Claire

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