{"title":"Erland Cooper","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eErland Cooper is a Scottish multi-instrumentalist and contemporary composer originally from Stromness, Orkney. He has released three acclaimed albums inspired by his childhood home and themes of nature, birds, community, and landscape. His work connects identity, memory, and place through music, words, and imagery. Cooper collaborates with well-known artists and writers to further explore these themes. Additionally, he works on mixed media projects including installation art, theatre, and film.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"folded-landscapes","title":"Folded Landscapes","description":"\u003cp\u003eGroundbreaking Scottish composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erland Cooper shares his ambitious fourth studio album\u003ci\u003e Folded Landscapes\u003c\/i\u003e. 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 \u0026amp; visual artist Norman Ackroyd. Field recordings of the natural world include the California wildfires and crashing glaciers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA 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. \u003ci\u003eFolded Landscapes\u003c\/i\u003e is released on Mercury KX.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mercury KX","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50419193348427,"sku":"2013885","price":34.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50419190956363,"sku":"2013882","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50419191906635,"sku":"2013884","price":32.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Folded_Landscapes_b366f58a_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726746319"},{"product_id":"carve-the-runes-then-be-content-with-silence","title":"Carve The Runes Then Be Content With Silence","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eErland Cooper's\u003c\/strong\u003e new album \u003cem\u003eCarve the Runes Then Be Content With Silence\u003c\/em\u003e is a recording of Cooper’s brand new three-movement composition for solo violin and string ensemble.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe work marks the centenary of celebrated Orkney poet George Mackay Brown, as 2021 marks 100 years since his birth. Inspired by natural landscapes and ruminating on time, hope, community, and patience, the sole recording of the work – on ¼ inch magnetic tape, with the digital files permanently deleted – has been planted to grow and be nurtured or “recomposed” by the earth before being exhumed and released in three years’ time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhilst Cooper will not be unearthing the tape until 2024, he has left a trail for anyone to search and find it if they wish. A map with clues to the location of the planting site will be released via his digital platforms. If the planted tape is found, Erland will invite the discoverer to his studio to embark on a journey together for the treasured first listen. It will then be released exactly as it sounds from the earth.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eErland Cooper\u003c\/strong\u003e says, “Music can so often feel undervalued and for some, being unable to perform live has at times felt like being buried. When an idea forms, there is often an urge to share it as quickly as it develops but like spotting a bird, I want to let this fly and land in its own place and time. The work is one part remembrance and one part celebration of a landmark time.” He adds, “The material on the tape may erode naturally, disintegrate and create drops of silence, or the peaty soil may preserve it perfectly well. It may or may not get better with age. I may or may not fall out of favor with my composition. Any alterations to the sound and music [when it comes out of the earth] will be reincorporated into the pages of a new score and live performance, as orchestral articulations.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mercury KX","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50426604945739,"sku":"1125812","price":34.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50426604552523,"sku":"1125814","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/ERLAND_COOPER_CARVE_THE_RUNES_COVER_7712707f_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726814283"},{"product_id":"hether-blether","title":"Hether Blether","description":"\u003cp\u003eErland Cooper's third and final album in a trilogy of releases shaped by the islands where he grew up. Hailing from the archipelago of Orkney in Scotland, the contemporary composer and multi-instrumentalist has explored the birdlife (2018’s \u003ci\u003eSolan Goose\u003c\/i\u003e), sea (2019’s \u003ci\u003eSule Skerry\u003c\/i\u003e) and, on \u003ci\u003eHether Blether\u003c\/i\u003e, the land, manifesting an immersive collection of music, words and imagery. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInspired in essence by Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown, filmmaker Margaret Tait and composer Peter Maxwell Davies before him, this final album is a celebration of the Islands’ memory held in timeless landscape, community, myth and mythology. The album looks to the past through the stories of the island and to the present and future through its people. \u003ci\u003eHether Blether\u003c\/i\u003e weaves elements of \u003ci\u003eSolan Goose \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eSule Skerry\u003c\/i\u003e, bringing them together in a full circle around the cycles of the changing seasons. Throughout the triptych, Cooper explores a restorative path in the rhythm and poetry of the every day, deep within a land and community at the edge of the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn Hether Blether, as on the albums before, song titles are taken from local dialect and nod to the places and stories of the island (\u003ci\u003eNoup Head, Rousay, Longhope\u003c\/i\u003e) as well as the people themselves (\u003ci\u003ePeedie Breeks\u003c\/i\u003e, which translates as ‘children’). Visual artist Alex Kozobolis has directed three films that accompany the release, set in Orkney. In the spirit of community, there are numerous collaborations on the album, including contributions from the renowned Scottish poet and novelist John Burnside, documented by the recent BBC Radio 4 programme, Wild Music, and Scottish musician Kathryn Joseph and Hinako Omori, among many more.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Phases","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50461907255627,"sku":"1090336","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50461908271435,"sku":"1090334","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/39b1faee-09af-4730-a880-89b132fe363f_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727253751"},{"product_id":"music-for-growing-flowers","title":"Music For Growing Flowers","description":"\u003cp\u003eErland Cooper shares a new mesmerising ambient album to be listened to while growing your own flowers and plants. The Scottish modern classical \/ ambient composer creates a hypnotic sonic embrace for thinking about our relationship with nature, blending the sounds of piano, harp, cello, violin and vocals with atmospheric electronics. Nodding to impressionist painting techniques, he intends for the listener to hear new textures upon each listen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe album’s A Side is the commissioned soundscape for Superbloom, an installation of 20 million newly sown flowers at the Tower of London, to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The music amplifies the installation’s emotional impact, including for the visually-impaired, by rebalancing the dominant city noises and intertwining specific audio frequencies to uncover harmony in the most bustling of environments. The B Side features further entrancing atmospheric tracks vivid with dreamy melodies for piano, harp, cello, violin and vocals.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVinyl packaging uses recycled paper.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mercury KX","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50480802890059,"sku":"1150296","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/43e53ba7-ddac-4fde-8529-fa13ce23f24a_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727527669"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_5fb6e7c4_thumbnail_4096_de628433-3a8c-4247-88cb-e8de886eb02c.jpg?v=1726746274","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/erland-cooper.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}