Liner notes:
Everything began on a green, short-pile carpet – the kind that gives you rug-burn if you slide on it. There in the living room of my childhood home stood a vinyl record cabinet. And Beethoven, Sibelius, Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding.
My parents’ records started me on a trip that is still ongoing. An inner journey – but also a physical one – including concerts, tours and a Master’s Degree in improvisation and composition.
I got the desire to create my own music, became interested in the architectonics of music, and how sound waves have the ability to stir feelings, which in turn can have physical manifestations. There were many instruments at my parents’ house, so I had wonderful opportunities for both playing and composing.
Since then many impressions, encounters, heroes and sources of inspiration have followed. Some have been with me all the way, others have been detours, but together they have built my musical foundation – my backbone. Some say you are what you eat, but for me it’s more like I am what I listen to. I am a product of my continually expanding record collection: Kraftwerk, Neil Young, Radiohead, Leonard Cohen, Stravinsky, Bartók, Debussy, Dylan, NEU!, Mingus, Miles.
My ambition has always been to compose with as little compromise as possible – but to shoot from the hip hasn’t worked for me. Frank Zappa says: “The most important thing in art is The Frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively – because, without this humble appliance, you can’t know where The Art stops and The Real World begins. You have to put a ‘box’ around it because otherwise, what is that shit on the wall?”
I also need a frame, and for this project I’ve been inspired by Impressionism. You could see Music from a Room as a homage to the Impressionists who were active in Paris around the year 1900, spiked with my diverse vinyl collection almost a century later. The sound waves from my childhood roll on. In another form. From another room.
Ultra rare – only 100 copies made. Hand-numbered by me.
Containing eight compositions for piano performed by the concert pianist Kalle Stenbäcken.
Buy it here:
Sweden
Bengans Skivbutik
Within EU
Bengans Record Store
Rest of the world
Bengans Record Store