About this album (Released 22 nov. 2024)
LINK TO VARIOUS PLATFORMS (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube etc.)
It is very common in Sweden to have a laundry room (a ”Laundry hut”) for the whole building.
Sometimes there’s even a mutual laundry room for a whole yard, with several apartment buildings around, like in our place.
So what does it have to do with my music?
I’ve been moving quite a lot and in every new place I’ve been keen to not disturb my neighbours when I play music.
My grand piano can be very powerful.
Luckily I have through the year only got to hear that my neighbors like my music.
”Oh, you are playing so nice!” they’d say.
”But, when and where do you hear my music?” I ask,
I play mostly for myself.”
”It’s when we do the laundry” they say.
I therefore dedicate the music in this album to all my neighbors throughout the years that have heard it while making the laundry.
This album contain mostly music for piano and keyboards. It is in the border landscape of Jazz, Folk and some Classical influence.
Some compositions are very simple, some are almost entirely improvised and some have grown forward while recording it to become something entirely new to me.
Non of this music has been written down or recorded before, and one of the main reasons to record it was to put the music on ”paper”, for me or others to remember, and hopefully to enjoy. I gave myself a task to make at least one piece a week. I started in August 2024 and at the end of October 2024 I had 15 tracks and 13 that I was satisfied with.
I would describe the recording as advanced sketches for piano and keyboards.
I’d like to see this album as a whole and not merely a list of compositions.
I put the music in a certain order, to vary in temperament or style. To shift in mode or to lead the listener to another mode.
You can of course listen to it in any order you like but it would make me happier if you’d listen from the beginning to the end. Over and over again. Hey, why not make it a habit to start your day with my music 🙂
I’m a sucker for beautiful things. I know that what counts as beautiful is very different from one person to another. That is in itself a beautiful thing …
I still believe that there are universal aesthetics, no mater who you are and where you are.
I don’t think any art form should be explained. But, there’s always a story to tell behind an artwork. Hopefully my music can evoke a story in my listeners. I sure do have something to tell.
If it was possible, I’d put some poems after some of the compositions, or even read poems during the listening.
But that would probably complicate things. Check out the section Text in this site for some combinations of music and text.
Some more about how the album was born below.
THE TRACKS:
- Step Up Step Down (2:48)
- Telemark’s Landing (4:14)
- Aston Sleepy One (3:29)
- Sasha’s Walz (6:17)
- As time goes by (2:22)
- Spot and Splodge Makeover Theme (1:17)
- Old Piano Dance (3:43)
- Romance in E (4:40)
- HaSaifan 35 (6:37)
- Sole it out! (2:09)
- Shirley Rhapsody I & II (8:18)
- Hej Chick Project (8:02)
- Three feet on a chair (2:52)
One thing leads to another.
I celebrated my 60th birthday in July 2024 by having a party with many guests, live music, beer and pizza.
Just before this occasion I published an autobiographic book, “Mina Svenska Hem” (see here).
One of my guests, Chimo, runs a monthly cultural gathering with different kind of performances, film screening, poetry reading and more. He asked me during the party if I maybe could read some parts from my book in one of his gatherings. Hmm, that could be something, I thought, and I could also play some music between the readings.
I felt though that I might be doing too much alone and maybe it would even be a greater fun to ask my friend Maria who’s a choreographer if she could dance to some of my short piano compositions.
She asked me to send her the music.
I had to not only record the music I thought might work for her but also decide how this music is going to be played.
I have always just sat at the piano and played. It’s a nice thing to do after breakfast. (You should all try it :)) I didn’t planned ”to do” something with the music, I just enjoyed playing and improvising all kind of stuff without a purpose. I build up a large repertoire, but it was all in my head and I played it differently every time.
But now I had to kind of nail the compositions so they would be suitable for a choreographer to build her dance around it. I recorded myself on the piano with my cellphone and sent her three of them. Then I thought, maybe I should try to record them in a better way.
This is how it started.
The compositions are from different periods in my life.
Some of them have been composed in my teans for more than 40 years ago, and some recently.
I had two conditions for choosing a composition.
One – I should be able to play them without too many mistakes on the piano from the beginning to the end.
Two – I will not over work them. They should be as good as I can do in about a week.
I have had so many long projects with my animated films and I didn’t want to get stuck with a never ending project.
Now I can start planning the next collection.