Folded Landscapes

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 Acclaimed Scottish composer Erland Cooper returns with his fourth studio album, Folded Landscapes, in collaboration with pioneering string group Scottish Ensemble and UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage among other familiar voices.
 

Hailed for work that celebrates themes of nature, people, place and time, Cooper continues to merge music with evocative storytelling and conceptional art in Folded Landscapes (released 5 May on Mercury KX). The album, recorded in sub-zero temperatures that slowly increased across its seven movements and with an audio master sun-burnt in the 40.9C heat of the hottest day in UK history, figuratively and literally thaws over the duration of a pertinent new album.  

 

Scottish Ensemble are a collective of pioneering string musicians with whom he developed the album which also features piano, voice, harpsichord, electronics and field recordings. Though born from observations on climate change, temperature and time the work is ultimately an opportunity to celebrate and cherish the natural world.

 

On Folded Landscapes, Cooper explains “I hope in this new work, a listener will be rewarded for their patience from a cold, glacial ascent by a slowly thawing, burning hope.”