Erland Cooper - Sule Skerry

Wie konnte mir das passieren? Da hat Erland Cooper, der hier mit seinen bisherigen Bands Erland & The Carnival und The Magnetic North sowie den dazugehörigen Alben durchwegs begeistern konnte („Erland & The Carnival“ (2010, 7,083 Punkte), „Nightingale“ (2011, Platz 9 mit 8,000 Punkten), „Orkney: Symphony of the Magnetic North“ (2012, Platz 2 mit 8,300 Punkten) „Closing Time“ (2014, 7,100 Punkte), „Prospect of Skelmersdale“ (2016, Platz 40 mit 7,500 Punkten)) im letzten Jahr ein neues Album veröffentlicht - und ich habe es nicht mitbekommen! 

„Solan Goose“ war der Titel seines ersten Soloalbums und sollte der erste Teil eines Triptychons sein, dass sich thematisch mit der Natur rund um seine Heimatinsel Orkney auseinandersetzt. Nachdem „Solan Gosse“ das Element „Luft“ behandelte, dreht sich der nun erschienene Nachfolger „Sule Skerry“ - Liedtitel wie „First Of the Tide“ oder „Lump’O Sea“ deuten es bereits an -  ums „Wasser“. Dazu Erland Cooper: 

“It’s a record about the sea, our relationship with the outside world, forces outside of our control but it’s also about creating a nest within that, nurturing and protecting our own sea havens, those sheltered bays, those safe places. Always returning back in some form, as we step in and out daily”. 

Musikalisch liegen die neuen Songs von „Sule Skerry“ zwischen den Veröffentlichungen mit The Magnetic North und Soundtracks, denen sich Cooper zwischen durch widmete, sowie dem Œuvre von Yann Tiersen: So gibt es Spoken Word Beiträge, Field Recordings, an- und abschwellenden Chorgesang, sanftes, Piano, aufbrausende Streicher und zwischen Folk und Ambient schwimmende, traumhafte Instrumentals zu hören.

Vinyl-Freunde können beide Alben natürlich als LP erwerben. Für „Sule Skerry“ gilt: Manufactured using recycled vinyl, so every record will be unique, no two colours will be the same. All cardboard used is FSC certified.

This commitment to storytelling and dovetailing details makes Sule Skerry feel like a “sonic postcard” according to Cooper, and the result is a series of idiosyncratic love letters to home. At 9 tracks long, it’s not an album that feels overwrought or overthought with Cooper getting the balance right. The tracklisting isn’t as structured as quiet-loud-quiet but where the brilliantly-titled ‘Groatie Buckies’ pushes heavy on lingering piano chords, ‘Lump O’Sea’ cuts through with a flash of tension as contrasting piano lines lean on somber strings and siren songs. Then where ‘First Of The Tide’ feels as bright and breathless as evading the waves on the beach and ‘Spoot Ebb’ dances around with a fleeting softness, ‘Flattie’ stirs as the album’s most dramatic track with Kris Dreyer’s Scottish burr adding gruff weight up front before the thunder clap of percussion shifts into the dissonance of frothing seas and storm-battered cliffs.
It’s that delight in his slight return that makes Sule Skerry such a lovely piece of work—considered, crafted and explorative of details that only someone with a true affinity can delve into. If Cooper’s intent was to create an insular kind of magic, he does so here with the interview snippets and Orcadian dialect, peppering tracks with a sense of folklore and nautical culture. And just as the tracklisting for Solan Goose provided satisfied an inquisitive desire to discover and decipher, track titles like ‘Haar’, ‘Sillocks’ and ‘Spoot Ebb’ are further invitations that only add to the charm of Cooper’s magnified focus of home. Wish you were here?
(Loud And Quiet)

Sule Skerry is carefully constructed from ebbing piano motifs, airy string textures and soft synthetic drones. Field recordings seep in and out of the compositions, creating moments of temporary resonance in spaces between Orcadian landscape and Cooper’s London studio. The sub-bass rumble of thunder rolling across open water like a low-end sine wave; the hum of a passing fishing boat wavering in and out of a synth drone. (…)
There is a precise and crystalline feel to both the compositions and the playing throughout. This is less the messy weather-world of an Orcadian landscape experienced in situ, and more the recollection of a place romantically reassembled at a distance. Sule Skerry is a sonic postcard itself: an attentive, often beautiful, work of island memory.
(Caught By The River)