Forms Redux

Herne returns with another Piano Day track, this time with an emphasis on ‘Play’

“Why does the world need a Piano Day? For many reasons. But mostly, because it doesn’t hurt to celebrate the piano and everything around it: performers, composers, piano builders, tuners, movers and most important, the listener.” – Nils Frahm

Piano Day, an annual worldwide event founded by a group of likeminded people, takes place on the 88th day of the year – in 2023 it’s the 29th March – because of the number of keys on the instrument being celebrated.

Over the past two years, composer, sound and visual artist Marcus Herne has made contributions to the day in the form of singles ’88’ and ’88.II’. It was a very spontaneous decision to write the original piece back in 2021, which resulted in Herne only having a day to compose, mix and master the track before its release, using only the piano as a sound source.

This year Herne makes a third addition to the collection - 88.III takes the listener in a very different direction to the past two instalments. Their ambient drones and crushing distorted harmonics have been replaced by a far more gentle and curious piece. A reason for this is partly to Herne’s decision to change his approach for piano day track, rather than focusing on pushing the pianos sound to its limit, he wanted to purely play with the instrument and see where it led. 88.III’s concept differs again with Marcus allowing himself the use of other instruments, such as strings, percussion and a Celeste. With this being said, the sounds at the heart of the piece is the piano.

‘I wanted to go back to basics in a way - rather than approach the piano with the mind of composer or sound designer, I wanted to use it purely as a form of play, and just work purely on instinct’.

The result is an uncomplicated piece of music, but full of feeling, and grounded in the underlying notion of an adult trying to claw back at their childlike nature. 88.III’s concept is echoed in the artwork which was also created by Marcus Herne.

88.III will be released on all digital platforms on March 29, 2023. This follows the release of ‘Forms Redux’, a four track remix EP to be released on March 24, 2023.

88.III

02 Wakes

03 Further Reach

04 Forms

01 Regulus

Marcus Herne is a UK based composer, producer and sound artist, who’s distinct compositional and production style treads a ferocious path uniting and adapting practices from classical minimalism, experimental sound design and contemporary classical as well as electronic music production.