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Stories   >   ERLAND COOPER RELEASES HIS CHORALLY COLLABORATIVE EGILSAY / BACKSEAT MAFIA

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ERLAND COOPER RELEASES HIS CHORALLY COLLABORATIVE EGILSAY / BACKSEAT MAFIA

Posted: April 22, 2022

Scottish composer Erland Cooper new EP, Egilsay, on Mercury KX is Erland’s second collaboration with the renowned vocal ensemble, Shards. It will be accompanied by a video capturing an evening of the recording at Erland’s London studio, shot by long-time collaborator Alex Kozobolis. Egilsay, named after one of the smaller northern isles in the archipelago of Orkney, is the follow up to 2020’s collaboration with Shards, the Eynhallow EP. For this release, the experimental vocal ensemble expand on Erland’s compositions with this absorbing and contemplative piece of work, meditating on the theme of shifting time & light.

Cooper explains, “Song titles are words associated with changing light in local dialect and the cover artwork is a still photograph at dusk of reflections over sand and sea - a hopeful glimmer of tiny, growing estuaries among dark sand patterns. Water and light always find their way to the surface".
 
As with his previous Shards collaboration, which was released last festive season, the EP closes with a poem version, on this new EP Paris-based composer, conductor and arranger, Uèle Lamore & Scottish artist Kathryn Joseph nod back to Erland’s previous work with words by Keats, a variation framed but resonating in a different setting.
 
This new EP ends another busy year for Erland Cooper. His first release for Mercury KX, Never Pass Into Nothingness, was released last month. The EP & film, inspired by filmmaker Margaret Tate and shot in and around the The City of London and its infamous modernist architecture, was described by MOJO as “an almost Zen-like hymn to timeless, transporting quietude”, and is available to listen and watch to HERE.
 
Erland Cooper and renowned violinist Daniel Pioro recently journeyed across Orkney with Scottish poet George Mackay Brown’s An Orkney Tapestry as a guide. Along the way Cooper planted his album, Carve the Runes Then Be Content With Silence. And BBC Radio 3 documented the journey. You can listen to the programme HERE.
 
“An Orkney Tapestry effortlessly showed how to be daring, creative and culturally genre crossing... wild and inspiring” - The Telegraph
 
“At a time in history when technology has made the world’s recorded music available to anyone with a streaming subscription… Cooper’s project serves as a commentary on the disposable nature of music and the immediacy with which it is delivered.” 
The Times

BACKSEAT MAFIA's Chris Sawle writes…MAGISTERIAL Orcadian composer Erland Cooper has released his second choral collaboration with the Shards ensemble, an EP focussing on one of Orkney’s northern islands, Egilsay, featuring four tracks of and about the island with a population of 14.

Here at Backseat Mafia we featured a track, the moving, almost holy “Glimro”, at the beginning of the month; come inside today and take a peek behind the scenes in a short making-of film made by Alex Kozobolis. Egilsay, named after one of the smaller northern isles in the archipelago, sees the experimental vocal ensemble Shards expand on Erland’s compositions, meditating on the theme of shifting time and light.

Erland says: “From sea pink to the shimmer of the aurora polaris, in Orkney the light shifts so many times a day you rarely see the same view twice. “Song titles are words associated with changing light in local dialect and the cover artwork is a still photograph at dusk of reflections over sand and sea – a hopeful glimmer of tiny, growing estuaries among dark sand patterns.”

Shards’ Kieran Brunt says of the collaboration: “It was a huge delight to continue our collaboration with Erland, this time singing together in person in his intimate studio.” Looking to next year, Erland has announced that his live score for the 1928 silent film The Wind, directed by Victor Sjöström and starring Lillian Gish, will premiere at Sage Gateshead on February 24th. His new score will see him bring his own analogue processing and field recordings to a score written for the women of the 18-strong Chorus of Opera North. For more details and tickets, visit the Opera North website here.

Egilsay follows last month’s Never Pass Into Nothingness EP, his first for Mercury KX, which was inspired by the modernist architecture of The City of London.

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