Stray Landings sit down with Swedish composer Ellen Arkbro to talk ‘For Organ and Brass’, meantone and Stockholm.
“Ellen Arkbro’s initial experiments on texture, tone and timbre can be found on Soundcloud, catalogued by their date of creation and nothing else. This is the world so many musicians start in: self-uploaded tidbits and experimental obscurities. Not much else on Arkbro was in the public domain before this year, so I guess I was kind of surprised to hear something likeFor Organ & Brassas a debut full length release. Because this is an ambitious, mammoth record. The kind of thing you release at the height of a career, instead of at its beginning.
At first pass, it’s easy to get distracted by the novel aspects of this album. The opening piece uses a 400-year-old organ, tuned to the subtle but seductive ‘meantone temperament’. This is a tuning rarely heard. It sounds kind of ‘rounded out’ and warped. In meantone, a chord on its own feels more spherical than usual: a tensionless harmony of frequencies. But try transitioning to any standard cadence and you hear its refracted curvature across the keyboard, like a musical score in a hall of mirrors.”
At Rewire 2018, Ellen Arkbro performs ‘For Organ and Brass’ with the Zinc & Copper ensemble. Listen to ‘For Organ and Brass’ below and learn more about her show at next year’s festival at: Ellen Arkbro + Zinc & Copper.
Rewire 2018 Festival Passes are available at:Tickets.