Description
Andreas Eklöf has established himself in Gothenburg, Sweden, as a composer, electronica musician (Eukleuf) and a pop musician, as one of two members in the pop duo Lilak, whose album Birds, water and days will be released fall 2008.
After many years of composing music to artists such as The Gothenburg Combo (Andreas’s piece, Friday, can be found on their album Soundscapes), movies and art exhibitions, it’s finally time for Andreas debut album NOR.
Mats Persson, who, since the 1970’s, has co-operated with artists such as John Cage, Morton Feldman, Mats Gustafsson and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and is one the most well-established musicians within the modern Swedish art music scene, has played an important part in the creation of NOR. He plays on four of the seven pieces on the album. Mats Persson says this about Andreas Eklöf’s music:
“I first came in contact with Andreas Eklöf ’s music during the work with NOR for prepared piano. During the studying of the piece it turned out that Andreas’ extremely subtle and refined way of preparing the piano’s middle register didn’t have anything to do with John Cage’s “classic” prepared piano (which one might first think). It is rather a further development and a refinement of the possibilities for registration that were used on the early 19th century fortepiano. The tension, the playing between prepared and unprepared notes, and a very conscious use of the pedals, creates music in several layers. A fascinating spatial complexity arises: a spatial polyphony.
The room, the spatial, has apparently continued to interest Andreas. In Patterns for Three Pianos, and in Piece for Three Pianos, the three pianists never really meet. They remain isolated in their own rooms. Instead, the meeting occurs in the imaginary room that the music creates. In Tiento I, (A. Cabezón) – ambience version, Andreas takes it one step further. In this piece he uses pre-existing music and creates the different rooms through which this music travels: a journey, literally speaking, through time and space. In Andreas Eklöf ’s music, one is first struck by its simplicity and maybe even its fragility, but this is deceptive and illusory. Under the surface there is stringency, awareness, expressiveness, and also a wonderful inventiveness and freshness.”
All music on NOR is composed by Andreas Eklöf and performed by: Mats person, piano and clavichord; Stephanie Mulot, Lina Nilsson, Lasse Egge, piano; Olof Olsson, Amund Sjølie Sveen, vibraphones and gongs; Andreas Eklöf, zither and electronics.
Listen to a sample here.
