About this item

Groundbreaking Scottish composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erland Cooper shares his ambitious fourth studio album Folded Landscapes. Known for merging modern classical-electronic music with evocative storytelling and conceptual art, Erland shares his urgent observation on climate change, temperature and time. This poignant chamber string work figuratively and literally thaws over seven movements, unfolding with electronics, poetry, soprano, piano, harpsichord, field recordings and samples. The work features Scottish Ensemble, UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and other voices including activist Greta Thunberg, multi-award winning conservationist Dara McNaulty and & visual artist Norman Ackroyd. Field recordings of the natural world include the California wildfires and crashing glaciers.

The creative process mimicked the rising temperature of the piece from glacial to a threatening burn - musicians were recorded in subzero temperatures and the audio master tape was sun-burnt on the hottest day in UK history. The heat, moisture, salt and sunlight worked its way into the fabric of the tape, which has been mixed into the finished work, underscoring the work with an unsettling burn that crackles and pops.

A percentage of the copyright share will go to Brian Eno’s EarthPercent charity as a beautiful way of embedding the planet as a stakeholder in musical creativity and raising money for climate/environmental organisations. The Earth’s share of the song - and its income - will be directed to EarthPercent to redistribute to organisations tackling the climate crisis. Folded Landscapes is released on Mercury KX.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The wonderful Erland Cooper presents his newest suite of soaring instrumentals and warming storytelling, this time focusing on the environmental crisis and including prominent climate change voices and pertinent field recordings. It's huge and beautiful, and exactly what we'd expect from Cooper.

TRACK LISTING

Movement 1 [6:42]
Movement 2 [5:03]
Movement 3 [3:53]
Movement 4 [7:09]
Movement 5 [6:51]
Movement 6 [3:57]
Movement 7 [9:01]