Piano Day 2017 Playlist

Reading / Calm Music

Piano Day

Focus Like a Fox Red Tea

Nils Frahm – Ambre

Order 7"/DL here: www.erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP073
or via iTunes: http://snip.ftpromo.net/lifestoryloveandglory

Erased Tapes artists and friends Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm have separately carved out a musical career that defies genres both with their unique live shows and a loyal fan base that’s always eager to hear what their prolific output will bring. 

Their latest collaborative 2-track release ‘Life Story Love and Glory’ is a live improv affair on two pianos, recorded in 2012 at Nils’s Durton Studio in Berlin. Fans may wonder why they have waited until 2015 to release these tracks, but having revealed a new website www.arnaldsfrahm.com you may think this may not be the end to their musical story this year. 

“We would meet in Reykjavik or Berlin with the intention to share some days off work, hiking, swimming or eating pizza. That is great for a couple days, but after a while we would always end up back in the studio, fiddling with synths or pianos.” – Nils Frahm 
“You can hear in the beginning of ‘Life Story’ how I have already started playing the piano whilst Nils is still moving microphones around and preparing everything. It was all kept in!“ – Ólafur Arnalds 

‘Life Story Love and Glory’ will be released as a 7” on Erased Tapes – exclusively through record stores only on August 21, 2015 ahead of its digital release later on – as an ode to this classic and beloved format. 

More info: www.arnaldsfrahm.com · www.erasedtapes.com

Life Story Love And Glory

Life Story

Buy 7"/DL

Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm – Life Story

親しさの負担

featuring excerpts from 'Nanami: the Inferno of First Love', by Susumu Hani & Shuji Terayama
引用：『初恋・地獄編』羽仁進、寺山修司 1968年

The Burden of Familiarity

Taken from the compilation Piano Cloud Series - Volume One
Release date: March 11, 2016

www.1631recordings.com
www.1631recordings.bandcamp.com

Peter Broderick - Eyes Closed And Traveling

Study for Player Piano (i)

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)

Written, recorded and mixed by Janek Sprachta at Einraum Studio.
Mastered by Andreas Bonkowski.

Grow

Buy GROW

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

sound gift for piano day celebration 
29th march 2017

by
hania rani 

http://haniarani.com
https://www.facebook.com/haniaranimusic
https://www.youtube.com/hannaranna
https://www.instagram.com/haniarani

hania rani is coming
and she is coming
soon

hania rani - hawaii oslo

44,2 km (with Poltrock)

with @parraforcuva
„Als ich mit dem Songwriting angefangen habe, hat das Klavier eine wichtige Rolle beim Zugang zu meiner Kreativität gespielt. Es ist ein Symbol für meine ästhetische Wahrnehmung der Musik. Besonders die Leichtigkeit der softeren Töne harmoniert sehr gut mit meiner Musik. Schon ein paar Tastendrücke können so viel ausdrücken, das können nicht viele Instrumente. In vielen meiner Songs benutze ich das Klavier und in einigen ist es sogar das Schlüsselinstrument."

Read More here: http://i-d.vice.com/de_de/article/piano-day-quotes
& here: pianoday.org

Get It Here

Christian Löffler - Pigment (Parra for Cuva Piano Reinterpretation)

Re-recorded an older track for the Piano Day on 29th March 2017. Enjoy!

Polaroid Notes - Return To Echo Bay

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)

Berlin-based composer and vibraphonist Masayoshi Fujita will release his new album Book of Life, the third instalment in a trilogy of solo vibraphone recordings, on July 27. Stories, the first in the series and Masayoshi’s debut under his own name, will be re-issued by Erased Tapes at the same time.

Masayoshi continues his mission in bringing the vibraphone — a relatively new invention in the history of instruments often kept in the background in orchestras and jazz outfits — into the spotlight with his new album, Book Of Life. Having trained as a drummer, Masayoshi began experimenting with the vibraphone, preparing its bars with kitchen foil or beads, playing it with the cello bow, or using the other end of the mallets to create a more ambient texture of sound. Focussing on the vibraphone in this way sets Masayoshi apart, dedicating his artistic life to celebrating this fascinating and often under appreciated instrument and making his take on ambient and modern compositional styles a unique one.

 “I think the vibraphone is capable of more interesting and beautiful sounds that haven’t been heard before. It’s quite a new instrument but it’s often played in a similar way. I feel that there is a lot more to explore with this exciting instrument.” — Masayoshi Fujita

Masayoshi previously released two albums under his alias El Fog. He often collaborates with other artists, most frequently with the adventurous German producer Jan Jelinek whose revered album Schaum was released in 2015. The following year, Masayoshi released his experimental Needle Six piece, a BBC Radio 3 recording of an improvised session with UK electronic artist Guy Andrews for Late Junction. In addition, his label peer and fellow Berlin resident Nils Frahm mastered Stories, providing a fitting symmetry to its re-issue on Erased Tapes now.

Book Of Life

It's Magical

Masayoshi Fujita - It's Magical

Pre-order Fallen Trees on LP/CD/DL: http://radi.al/MelnykFallenTrees

Continuous Music pioneer and literal force of nature Lubomyr Melnyk releases his new album 'Fallen Trees' on December 7th. Known as ‘the prophet of the piano’ due to his lifelong devotion to his instrument, the new album coincides with Melnyk's 70th birthday. 

Cascades of notes, canyons and rivers of sound: there’s something about Lubomyr Melnyk's music that channels the natural world at its most awe-inspiring. In Fallen Trees the connection with the environment continues, taking its cue from a long rail journey Melnyk made through Europe. Glancing out of the window as the train passed through a dark forest, he was struck by the sight of trees that had recently been felled. “They were glorious,” he says. “Even though they’d been killed, they weren’t dead. There was something sorrowful there, but also hopeful.” That sense of sadness touched by optimism infuses the album, too: rarely has Melnyk made music so shot through with melancholy and regret, but which sounds so rapt, even radiant.

The five-part, 20-minute Fallen Trees is one of the most ambitious and demanding pieces he has ever created. Though the music is – as ever – Melnyk’s own, Fallen Trees once again features a number of Erased Tapes artists. Japanese vocal artist Hatis Noit, whose first EP Illogical Dance came out to much acclaim earlier this year, lends ethereal vocals, floating mysteriously above the surface of Melnyk’s eddying piano lines before diving far beneath. Other contributors include Berlin-based cellist Anne Müller, a sometime collaborator with Nils Frahm, and American singer David Allred, the most recent addition to the label family. “More than any of the albums that I’ve done, it’s a real collaboration,” Melnyk insists, emphasising how much he owes to his producer, Erased Tapes founder Robert Raths.

It is true to say that there is nothing quite like Melnyk’s work: a unique musical pioneer, he has defiantly carved his own path. “I don’t say to people I’m a composer,” he declares. “I don’t know what I am.”

Melnyk composes, as he plays, at the piano, feeling out lines and individual rhythmic cells that bubble, undulate and gradually expand into vast, interlinked frameworks. Asked to describe what it’s like to live inside his music, he says “my whole body is transformed as I play, it honestly feels like that. My fingers feel like the winds of the world; it feels like you’re physically transcending dimensions.”

Despite the autumnal hint in its title, there’s little suggestion of Melnyk slowing down. Having received critical acclaim and co-headlining the prestigious Royal Festival Hall as part of the Erased Tapes 10th anniversary celebrations, after many years his audience is now both global and growing. The composer is finally gaining a momentum in his career that matches the vibrant, highly active energy of his playing.

Fallen Trees

Son of Parasol

Lubomyr Melnyk - Son of Parasol

Following on from last year's acclaimed debut with Erased Tapes The Transition — named #17 album of the year by The Sunday Times — Californian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist David Allred returns with 'The Cell', released on June 14th. Listen to lead track 'Nature's Course', released especially for Piano Day.

“Nature’s Course is a feeling pertaining to the way our subjective human experience is subconsciously directly related to the slow steady pace of nature and our ability to cope with our inner struggles accordingly” explains David.

The Cell further cements David’s place among the American songwriting tradition, from the slow methodical spacey instrumental Mandatory Soul to the poetic solo piano number Family and the dense and continuous Lexington Hills. With each piece we are transported to David’s unusual but rich and textured little world.

Hailing from Loomis, a small town outside of Sacramento, via Portland, Oregon – David worked as a sound engineer and session musician, featuring on multiple recordings by the likes of Birger Olsen, Brigid Mae Power, Brumes, The Beacon Sound Choir, Chantal Acda, Heather Woods Broderick, Jung Body, Masayoshi Fujita, and many more. He quickly found himself touring Europe with Peter Broderick, culminating in a Royal Festival Hall performance, and contributing the arresting voice and double bass piece Ahoy to the Erased Tapes 10th anniversary box set 1+1=X.

David will return to Europe with more dates to be announced soon. 

· pre-order 'The Cell' on LP/CD/DL: https://idol.lnk.to/thecell

· order 'The Transition' on LP/CD/DL: https://www.erasedtapes.com/release/eratp114-david-allred-the-transition

The Cell

Nature's Course

David Allred - Nature's Course

Ambient / Contemporary Classic / Cinematic Sounds / Drone

Releases:
+ Inner Harmonies (Album)
(Driftworks Recordings DWR 009, June 2025)
+ Reflections EP (with Glacis)
(no label, March 2025)
+ All Our Yesterdays (Album)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 042, Febr 2025)
+ A Chance Before A Choice EP
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 041, Jan 2025)
+ Slow Tones EP
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 040, Nov 2024)
+ Quiet Rooms (Album)
(Whitelabrecs wlr 169, Sept 2024)
+ Remains Of Life EP
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 039, Aug 2024)
+ Fragments Of Love EP
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 038, March 2024)
+ Soundtrack For A Perfect Day (Album)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 037, Febr 2024)
+ Drones And Sketches (Album)
(Drone Works International DWI 47, Nov 2023)
+ Four Singles (Compilation Album)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 036, Oct 2023)
+ Nothing Left But Memories (Single)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 035, Sept 2023)
+ Forgiveness (Single)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 034, May 2023)
+ Winter Sketches EP
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 032, Dec 2022)
+ Autumn Sketches EP
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 031, Oct 2022)
+ Cloud Anthems (Album)
(Whitelabrecs wlr 123, Sept 2022)
+ Between Your World And Mine (Single)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 030, March 2022)
+ Walk Away In Silence (Single)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 029, Febr 2022)
+ Ocean Lines EP
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 028, Oct 2021)
+ Under The Stars EP
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 027, May 2021)
+ Still Life (Album)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 025, March 2021)
+ Schneewehen
(Weber & Alcantu Soundstory 2, Dec 2020)
+ Ghost Sounds (Album)
(Whitelabrecs wlr 084, Nov 2020)
+ Drone Reworks (Album)
(Drone Works International DWI 025, Sept 2020)
+ Home Diaries: Moonlight Sessions (album)
(Whitelabrecs Home Diaries Series HD 014, May 2020)
+ Passing Paris EP (ltd. edition 10 Inch vinyl)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 021, November 2019)
+ Golden Heart EP
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 020, March 2019)
+ Angel Band EP
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 019, Jan 2019)
+ Low Tides (Album)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 018, Nov 2018)
+ As Time Goes By (Album)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 017, Jan 2018)
+ Unsung Memories (Album)
(Whitelabrecs wlr029, October 2017)
+ Days Of Our Lives EP
(Audio Gourmet AGN 085, August 2017)
+ Re: Improvisation EP
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 015, May 2017)
+ Sunset Symphonies (Split-EP with Kraut Sounds)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 014, April 2017)
+ Dim Lights EP
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 012, October 2016)
+ The Rhodes Session (Mini Album)
(Büro für Erdrotation Spin 008, March 2016)
+ Sea Shores (Album)
(Tessellate Recordings TSR007, May 2015)
+ The Long Bright Dark EP
(Audio Gourmet AGN 077, April 2015)

Compilations:
+ Hold On Tight
("The Principle Of Hope" Compilation, Mol, Dec 2022)
+ Down By The Sea
("Ennio's Muse", Whitelabrecs, Jan 2021)
+ The Good Earth
("The Home Diaries", Whitelabrecs wlr 085, Jan 2021)
+ Dissolve (Drone Rework)
("Drone Works Vol. 3" Drone Works International DWI 21, Dec 2019) 
+ Nocturnal Mood
("Sleeplaboratory 1.0" Whitelabrecs wlr 50, Jan 2019)
+ The Good Earth (Minimal Drone RMX)
("Drone Works Vol. 1" Drone Works International DWI 03, Dec 2017)
+ Floating Not Drowning
(Track on "Earthtones Vol. 3" Compilation, Tessellate Recordings TSR006, March 2015)