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2LP
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KOM 456LP
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For over two decades, Kasper Bjørke has cut his own path, as a solo artist and enthusiastic collaborator. Bjørke's Copenhagen home may be one of Europe's great cultural hubs, and he's certainly added a paragraph or two to that story, but his music is distinctly international. Even a cursory listen exposes an impressive, ever-evolving career. However, few expected him to initiate the collaborative ambient/neo-classical project Kasper Bjørke Quartet. In 2018, The Fifty Eleven Project (KOM 393LP) was released on Kompakt Records, a deeply personal record that musically documents Bjørkes encounter with, and triumph over, cancer. The album topped many critics' lists, and was included among The Guardian's Best Contemporary Albums of the year. Mother represents a quantum leap forward. Literally, when you consider the terrestrial shifts that informed it. Six compositions explore what the evolution of our planet sounds like. While Holst may have gotten there first, Mother singularly focuses on the orb where we reside, from its formation, to its likely conclusion. Other artists have tackled song cycles that parallel a day, a year, or even a lifetime. Mother spans a timeframe from 4.5 billion years ago up to humankind's impending demise. It hints at how that may be sooner than we think, as well as the earth's resilience, and the promise of another chapter. Additional gravity comes courtesy of evocative choir arrangements -- and marimba recorded at the Copenhagen Opera House. "Formation" condenses 20 million years of runaway accretion into 20 minutes. It is sublimely padded by feature artist Sofie Birch's gentle synths. "Abiogenesis" intimates a different type of emergence: the first life to inhabit our nascent planet. The entire cosmos is condensed into the layered vocals of Philip|Schneider. Birch returns on "Miocene," which signals the divergence of proto-humans from primates not with foreboding, but rather cascaded notes and swells adumbrating a pure and curious being, revealing nothing of what the Catch-22 of knowledge will bring. That's addressed in the diptych of "Anthropocene" and "Tipping Points," respectively marking the dawn and foreshadowing the probable downfall of homo sapiens, through wondrous advancements and their climate damaging byproducts. It's tempting to think the album's finale, "Requiem," implies only a dark conclusion, owing to its sparkling verrillon's coronach, and the return of Philip|Schneider's empyrean vocals, but its juxtaposition with revolving, enigmatic piano chords infers the earth will enter its next act. Mother is a staggering achievement, encouraging contemplative thought.
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3LP BOX
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KOM 393LP
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Kompakt presents a new LP and audio-visual venture by Danish producer Kasper Bjørke and close cohorts. Epic in length but always captivating, The Fifty Eleven Project is an entirely ambient concept album that interprets and evokes the emotional rollercoaster Kasper experienced, from his cancer diagnosis and throughout the five years of regular check-ups. The week of the album release marks his second anniversary of getting the all-clear. The base of the album was composed on vintage analogue synthesizers, reverbs, echo and sequencers, by Kasper and synth wizard Claus Norreen, in the latter's Copenhagen studio, using the computer solely as a recording device. The violins, violas and cellos are composed and played by the Italian composer Davide Rossi, who has worked with Ennio Morricone, Jon Hopkins, Röyksopp, The Verve, and Goldfrapp. The piano parts are composed and played by Danish musician Jakob Littauer (of Kompakt label-mates Jatoma) on an old upright piano in a studio, and on a Steinway grand piano in the concert hall at the Royal Danish Music Conservatorium. From Max Richter's Sleep (2015), Hannah Peel's Mary Casio: Journey To Cassiopeia (2017), to much of Brian Eno's Music For Installations (2018), The Fifty Eleven Project continues in a rich vein of work by contemporary composers which explores a situation/condition, and is made with functionality and healing in mind. The visual side of The Fifty Eleven Project is made in collaboration with the culture laboratory Prxjects and acclaimed L.A.-based artist/filmmaker/photographer Justin Tyler Close, who has created art films for each of the album's tracks plus one music video including clips from all films. Furnished in an exquisite fabric box, this 180 gram 3-LP clear vinyl box is presented by cover art created by world-renowned artist Landon Metz, further cementing the release's multidisciplinary links to the art world.
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