Ellen Arkbro - Chords LP
With Chords, the Stockholm-based musician and composer Ellen Arkbro returns to Subtext, following her acclaimed debut album For Organ And Brass. This new long-player sees Arkbro adopt a more minimalist approach, focusing on the immediate qualities of sound and elegantly expanding the tonal capacities of acoustic instruments using precise, subtle synthesis. Composed of a carefully selected combination of tones, Chords stretches, extends and obscures the timbral character of the instruments it is performed on. Across both tracks, Arkbro examines the sonic materiality and harmonic quality of chords. She considers how the compositions occupy space rather than time – transposing theoretical possibilities into the phenomenal realm. As a part of Arkbro's systematic investigation of harmonic sound, Chords proffers a divergence from conventional ways of listening. "Chords For Organ" was first envisaged in Stockholm's brutalist Västerort Church. With an interest in tuned intervals and chords, Ar