With this post I’m celebrating 100 Spotted posts! That means 100 songs/album I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying since I started this blog (for real) in December 2018. And I’m celebrating with the album Bells for splitting reality by fellow Swedish composer Olof Cornéer. I’m gonna try to make this post about him as well as about myself (and my blog).
Olof sent me an email a while back asking if I would be interested in doing a post about him or his latest album on my blog. As always I forward him to SubmitHub because that’s how I handle all my submissions (and I get a lot of submission for this blog, and submithub makes it easier). But as usual I couldn’t resist having a listen to the album while I waited. And what met me with Bells for splitting reality took me back to when I was a teenager.
I have mentioned my uncle Per Gustavsson for you before. Both because he’s the artist behind the cover art for many of my (early) releases, but also because he (as I mentioned in my interview with Mike Lazarev) was the one who introduced me to this wonderful world of piano music (and still does, apparently). When I was a teenager my uncle introduced me to Mike Patton and bands like Fantômas, Mr. Bungle and Faith no more. But he also introduced me to the wonderful album Music for airports by Brian Eno. Listening to Bells for splitting reality took me back to that record and those songs. Even if the instrumentation is quite different it still reminds me a lot about that ambient record by Brian Eno.
When I write music I usually work with what may be called a “pop structure”. There’s an “A part” (verse) and a “B part” (chorus), and sometimes I throw in a C and a D part as well. Olof has instead created a background soundtrack of… whatever you want it to be a soundtrack of.
On my first listen through the album I was sitting in my living room watching my kids play with a big cardboard box (some bastard stole our bicycle trailer so we had to buy a new one, hence a very big cardboard box). They were nice to each other (oh, I can’t explain how much I love watching them play with each other) and this record was a great fit for that moment. Beautiful.
On the next listening session I was sitting in my kitchen, actually writing the beginning of this very post, and, well, it was a great moment for that moment as well. Beautiful.
Now I have been rambling around quite a bit about myself and my life. It’s time to give Olof a proper introduction!
Olof is a Swedish composer, based in Stockholm. He has worked with electronic music in different forms his entire life.
A few years ago a life changing event happened and I felt I had been neglecting one of my musical dreams – to compose notated/classical music. I suddenly just knew what kind of music I wanted to create, and it actually just took 1-2 days to finish the first part of the piece Bells For Splitting Reality. After that I just kept going, and I’m still writing. I just finished a wind quintet, and I’m also working with a choir here in Stockholm on a piece I’m writing.
I made some references to Brian Enos Music for airports earlier. Do you have a relation to this album? And can you see why I made those references?
It’s a classic album/piece and I have listened to it a lot of times during the years. The original is amazing of course, but I also really like the recording by Bang on a Can.
Thank you for this music Olof! What a to celebrated 100 spotted posts!
For more information about Olof and his music, please check out these following links:
Facebook / Instagram / Website / Spotify