Norway-based composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Swoop and Cross joins piano and coffee records to release his sophomore full-length album Les Fauves. 

Since the release of his acclaimed debut album with Time Released Sound in 2018, Swoop and Cross has been working on a new project entitled Les Fauves. As the name indicates, this project was profoundly influenced by fauvism, which inspired the use of heavy saturation, unconstrained orchestral segments and pointillistic revolving melodies and orchestrations. 

Like the first renown fauvist exhibition in 1905, this album combines ‘in the same room’ various stylistically aggressive pieces with a more conservative track (CLVLL), highlighting the ferocious nature of the remainder tracks of the album. It is, ultimately, a depiction of visual and auditory noise in nowadays’ automaton-like societies, and an attempt to prove that inner quietness, here in the form of gentle melodies, can permeate and eventually overrule such noise. 

This album was composed, recorded and mixed between 2018 and 2021, in London, UK, mastered at Black Knoll Studio, and will be available on the 4th of February on limited edition CD and digital format, featuring artwork by Celia Bayo that depicts a vestal virgin, which inspired track #4 Vestal, clashing restrained and feral styles.

Purchase

Swoop and Cross - CLVLL

Perceptions Vol. 3

First Light

Garreth Broke - First Light

It's such a pleasure to share with you No Love Lost, the first single from New-Orleans based composer & cellist Malcolm Parson's upcoming record Letters from Home. The record is paired with artwork by Dora Lazarevic that incorporates photos from Malcolm's childhood in and around New Orleans. Give this gentle, undulating number for piano and strings a listen and let us know what you think!

🎧 idol-io.link/mp-nolovelost

"No Love Lost is a term associated with people who struggle with each other. With the intentions of changing the meaning of the phrase, I wrote this piece out of the idea that love and appreciation is still there despite the current terms. With that, honor and respect,"

Letters from Home

No Love Lost

Download

Malcolm Parson - No Love Lost

Delicately

Jim Perkins & Javi Lobe - Delicately

@akirakosemura invigorates the ivories in his marvellously executed new piece Osmanthus. Occupying a special place on the cusp of night and day & summer and fall, this reflective lullaby evokes the alluring fragrance of the historic osmanthus flower...

To celebrate our 3rd release with Akira, we've bundled Osmanthus as a mini-EP which you can find now wherever you listen to music: li.sten.to/osmanthus

Osmanthus

⊜ spotify

Akira Kosemura - Osmanthus

Jacob David sure knows a thing or two about good vibes. Sink into his latest, the lovely 'Lille fugl' which features some melodic inspiration from Elliott Jacqués.

🎧 li.sten.to/lille-fugl

Lille fugl

Jacob David - Lille fugl

'All of It, Subatomic' is the 3rd single from Pêtr Aleksänder's upcoming LP. It's a hypnotic dance number featuring interplay between calls in the clarinet and saxophone, smooth string textures and a playful piano melody. You can spin it now, and also pre-order the record from our Bandcamp page : li.sten.to/subatomic

The Whole World Laid Out Before Me

All of It, Subatomic

Pêtr Aleksänder - All of It, Subatomic

You look at the spelling of the name and you wonder to yourself, where is this artist from? But then you realize that it's actually a name of a project, or "alternative modern classical band" comprised of Tom Hobden and Eliot James, who, together, compose some beautiful and cinematic music for the beloved Moderna Records. I first learned of Pêtr Aleksänder back in 2021, when the duo first came on the scene with their debut, Collage, which subsequently ended up on my Best of the Year list [in an appropriately named "Music For Withered Leaves And Lonely Fishtanks" category]. A year later the project is back with a follow-up, titled The Whole World Laid Out Before Me, and it's just as melancholic and exuberant, as wistful and celebratory, and as meditative and cerebral as before. This time, instead of enlisting an ensemble to perform the music, Tom and Eliot play all of the instruments across the nine pieces of the album, which makes it a truly personal and intimate experience. My favourite piece, to which I keep returning over and over, and which, as a result, I've requested to premiere for you today, is called "Dawn Reverie" and it features a carefully recorded clarinet melody, which, for some reason, puts me truly into a reflective mood. Maybe it's the rain outside of my window. Maybe it's the inevitable state of being and the final acceptance of reality as it is. Or maybe, just maybe, it is only this clarinet, playing just for me. I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I do, and get excited about the upcoming full album, which is out this Friday, November 4th.

Dawn Reverie

TRACK PREMIERE : Pêtr Aleksänder - Dawn Reverie

We could not be happier to announce that we'll be releasing Ole-Bjørn Talstad's debut record 'Ferd' on February 24 2023. 'Ferd' is an old Norwegian word meaning journey or voyage, which can also be used to indicate someone's journey through life. It is an apt name for Ole-Bjørn's album, which, while containing doses of nordic melancholy, perfectly captures his hopeful and optimistic outlook. 

We'd love for you to check out the first single 'Her' which is out now : moderna.lnk.to/her

Ferd

Ole-Bjørn Talstad - Her

From the album "Ver Sacrum"
“Throughout history, this expression has been used to describe various ritual group expulsions and the deduction of colonies, particularly with regard to people getting back to nature.
For example, the Italian town of Nocera was founded in the 7th Century BC by inhabitants from Camerinum, who left their ancestral homeland during a so-called Ver Sacrum.
In ancient Rome, during times of calamities such as pandemics, earthquakes, wars, or plagues, they used to devote children born in spring – from the 1st of March to the 30th of April – to the gods Jupiter and Mars. Then, when they turned 20 or 21, these children were required to leave the community to begin new settlements”
________________________________________
Sounding like some long lost, sacred canon, Ver Sacrum – the new album from Bruno Sanfilippo – marks something of a departure for the Barcelona-based pianist and composer. Far more orchestral in nature, there’s a spiritual, quasi-religious force to these pieces; strings swoop and soar, maudlin organs plough slowly, sorrowfully forward, while several sopranos add to the ecclesiastical air. But there’s hope and joy here too, and a childlike playfulness – playing these tensions against each other is what makes Ver Sacrum such an intense, rewarding listen. Inspired and informed by the ancient custom of ritualised expulsions of the same name, one can find the whole spectrum of humanity within these nine pieces: sorrow, loss, love, rebirth, change, hope, and the indefatigable human spirit. It’s what gives this music its power. Derek Robertson, journalist and music writer: Guardian, Independent, NME, VICE, Timeout, The Quietus, The Face.

Ver Sacrum

Yersinia Pestis

Spotify/AppleMusic

Composed, performed and recorded by Ben Crosland
Mastered by Ben Wiffen

Songs From Rainbow Hill

Rainbow Hill

Ben Crosland - Rainbow Hill

say hello / licensing / demos 
modernarecords@gmail.com

We're here to trace a line from electronic sound designers to classical composers, connecting them through the realms of ambient & cinematic music.

Ole-Bjørn Talstad - Her

Moderna Records

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