Kim Hiorthøy
Ghost Note
Boomkat Product Review:
Real special this one, pretty hard to categorise too, a future-primitivist fantasy from cult graphic designer, illustrator, filmmaker and sometime musician Kim Hiorthøy. It’s a brilliantly evocative sleight of hand that could have been recorded 40 years ago or just last week, sounding like the DIY private press of our dreams but also somehow reminding us of Aphex Twin in mechanical music box/Nannou mode. Yeah it’s a really gorgeous thing, tipped if yr into anything from those genius Heimat scores to Stroom nuggets in the modern era.
A career best from Hiorthøy, 'Ghost Note' plays like an excavated reel-to-reel of outsider experiments, complete with rhythms clanked out in a junkyard while twisted folk signatures coalesce from badly-tuned strings, woodwind and drunken piano improvisations. It would be enjoyable enough if that's all there was to it, but listen in a little closer and reality starts to crumble in front of your ears: the rhythms too flawlessly metered and precision engineered, the pruned instrumental sequences just too supple at the edges - you just don’t know if what you’re listening to is real or a simulation.
Hiorthøy has released various oddball records over the years - 2014's 'Dogs' was a meditative solo piano album rooted in hip-hop and '90s rave, while 'For The Ladies', from a decade earlier, pre-empted the obsession with diaristic field recording. In between, he’s dedicated himself to the compositional process, drafting scores for theatre, film and contemporary dance shows. That sprawling body of work has clearly provided him with a perfect vantage point for ‘Ghost Note’, bringing together many loose strands of interest to create an almost entirely new kind of music.
Just check 'Melody Set' and listen past the squeaky prepared piano and drum rattles - it's constructed like '90s electronic music, but treated as if it's an acoustic recital. On 'Slump Wave', his warm, oboe-like wheezes could have been rescued from a crumbling demo tape, caked in all the surface noise you'd imagine, while the delicate rhythm (mixed to blur into the hiss, of course) sounds like some generative gamelan model. 'Slump Wave’, meantime, is a relatively spartan experiment that sounds like the scrub of metallic percussion across a worn tape head. It could have been pulled from Deathprod's notoriously hands-on debut 'Deep Throat Puke Orgasms’, until blunt, misshapen piano chords and Burialised voices appear in the back half.
Hiorthøy keeps on wrong-footing us throughout, presenting ersatz versions of sounds we think we know, playing electronic music with folk instruments, then manufacturing folk music from purely digital elements. The real slip of the veil comes with the flatly titled 'Computer Music', a minimalist composition that hovers cautiously between both worlds; it might be strings or synths - the more you listen, the harder it is to tell.
Hiorthøy has done the impossible, not just by toppling his ponderous concept, but by making it sound so fucking beautiful and easy.
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Boomkat Product Review:
Real special this one, pretty hard to categorise too, a future-primitivist fantasy from cult graphic designer, illustrator, filmmaker and sometime musician Kim Hiorthøy. It’s a brilliantly evocative sleight of hand that could have been recorded 40 years ago or just last week, sounding like the DIY private press of our dreams but also somehow reminding us of Aphex Twin in mechanical music box/Nannou mode. Yeah it’s a really gorgeous thing, tipped if yr into anything from those genius Heimat scores to Stroom nuggets in the modern era.
A career best from Hiorthøy, 'Ghost Note' plays like an excavated reel-to-reel of outsider experiments, complete with rhythms clanked out in a junkyard while twisted folk signatures coalesce from badly-tuned strings, woodwind and drunken piano improvisations. It would be enjoyable enough if that's all there was to it, but listen in a little closer and reality starts to crumble in front of your ears: the rhythms too flawlessly metered and precision engineered, the pruned instrumental sequences just too supple at the edges - you just don’t know if what you’re listening to is real or a simulation.
Hiorthøy has released various oddball records over the years - 2014's 'Dogs' was a meditative solo piano album rooted in hip-hop and '90s rave, while 'For The Ladies', from a decade earlier, pre-empted the obsession with diaristic field recording. In between, he’s dedicated himself to the compositional process, drafting scores for theatre, film and contemporary dance shows. That sprawling body of work has clearly provided him with a perfect vantage point for ‘Ghost Note’, bringing together many loose strands of interest to create an almost entirely new kind of music.
Just check 'Melody Set' and listen past the squeaky prepared piano and drum rattles - it's constructed like '90s electronic music, but treated as if it's an acoustic recital. On 'Slump Wave', his warm, oboe-like wheezes could have been rescued from a crumbling demo tape, caked in all the surface noise you'd imagine, while the delicate rhythm (mixed to blur into the hiss, of course) sounds like some generative gamelan model. 'Slump Wave’, meantime, is a relatively spartan experiment that sounds like the scrub of metallic percussion across a worn tape head. It could have been pulled from Deathprod's notoriously hands-on debut 'Deep Throat Puke Orgasms’, until blunt, misshapen piano chords and Burialised voices appear in the back half.
Hiorthøy keeps on wrong-footing us throughout, presenting ersatz versions of sounds we think we know, playing electronic music with folk instruments, then manufacturing folk music from purely digital elements. The real slip of the veil comes with the flatly titled 'Computer Music', a minimalist composition that hovers cautiously between both worlds; it might be strings or synths - the more you listen, the harder it is to tell.
Hiorthøy has done the impossible, not just by toppling his ponderous concept, but by making it sound so fucking beautiful and easy.
Boomkat Product Review:
Real special this one, pretty hard to categorise too, a future-primitivist fantasy from cult graphic designer, illustrator, filmmaker and sometime musician Kim Hiorthøy. It’s a brilliantly evocative sleight of hand that could have been recorded 40 years ago or just last week, sounding like the DIY private press of our dreams but also somehow reminding us of Aphex Twin in mechanical music box/Nannou mode. Yeah it’s a really gorgeous thing, tipped if yr into anything from those genius Heimat scores to Stroom nuggets in the modern era.
A career best from Hiorthøy, 'Ghost Note' plays like an excavated reel-to-reel of outsider experiments, complete with rhythms clanked out in a junkyard while twisted folk signatures coalesce from badly-tuned strings, woodwind and drunken piano improvisations. It would be enjoyable enough if that's all there was to it, but listen in a little closer and reality starts to crumble in front of your ears: the rhythms too flawlessly metered and precision engineered, the pruned instrumental sequences just too supple at the edges - you just don’t know if what you’re listening to is real or a simulation.
Hiorthøy has released various oddball records over the years - 2014's 'Dogs' was a meditative solo piano album rooted in hip-hop and '90s rave, while 'For The Ladies', from a decade earlier, pre-empted the obsession with diaristic field recording. In between, he’s dedicated himself to the compositional process, drafting scores for theatre, film and contemporary dance shows. That sprawling body of work has clearly provided him with a perfect vantage point for ‘Ghost Note’, bringing together many loose strands of interest to create an almost entirely new kind of music.
Just check 'Melody Set' and listen past the squeaky prepared piano and drum rattles - it's constructed like '90s electronic music, but treated as if it's an acoustic recital. On 'Slump Wave', his warm, oboe-like wheezes could have been rescued from a crumbling demo tape, caked in all the surface noise you'd imagine, while the delicate rhythm (mixed to blur into the hiss, of course) sounds like some generative gamelan model. 'Slump Wave’, meantime, is a relatively spartan experiment that sounds like the scrub of metallic percussion across a worn tape head. It could have been pulled from Deathprod's notoriously hands-on debut 'Deep Throat Puke Orgasms’, until blunt, misshapen piano chords and Burialised voices appear in the back half.
Hiorthøy keeps on wrong-footing us throughout, presenting ersatz versions of sounds we think we know, playing electronic music with folk instruments, then manufacturing folk music from purely digital elements. The real slip of the veil comes with the flatly titled 'Computer Music', a minimalist composition that hovers cautiously between both worlds; it might be strings or synths - the more you listen, the harder it is to tell.
Hiorthøy has done the impossible, not just by toppling his ponderous concept, but by making it sound so fucking beautiful and easy.
Boomkat Product Review:
Real special this one, pretty hard to categorise too, a future-primitivist fantasy from cult graphic designer, illustrator, filmmaker and sometime musician Kim Hiorthøy. It’s a brilliantly evocative sleight of hand that could have been recorded 40 years ago or just last week, sounding like the DIY private press of our dreams but also somehow reminding us of Aphex Twin in mechanical music box/Nannou mode. Yeah it’s a really gorgeous thing, tipped if yr into anything from those genius Heimat scores to Stroom nuggets in the modern era.
A career best from Hiorthøy, 'Ghost Note' plays like an excavated reel-to-reel of outsider experiments, complete with rhythms clanked out in a junkyard while twisted folk signatures coalesce from badly-tuned strings, woodwind and drunken piano improvisations. It would be enjoyable enough if that's all there was to it, but listen in a little closer and reality starts to crumble in front of your ears: the rhythms too flawlessly metered and precision engineered, the pruned instrumental sequences just too supple at the edges - you just don’t know if what you’re listening to is real or a simulation.
Hiorthøy has released various oddball records over the years - 2014's 'Dogs' was a meditative solo piano album rooted in hip-hop and '90s rave, while 'For The Ladies', from a decade earlier, pre-empted the obsession with diaristic field recording. In between, he’s dedicated himself to the compositional process, drafting scores for theatre, film and contemporary dance shows. That sprawling body of work has clearly provided him with a perfect vantage point for ‘Ghost Note’, bringing together many loose strands of interest to create an almost entirely new kind of music.
Just check 'Melody Set' and listen past the squeaky prepared piano and drum rattles - it's constructed like '90s electronic music, but treated as if it's an acoustic recital. On 'Slump Wave', his warm, oboe-like wheezes could have been rescued from a crumbling demo tape, caked in all the surface noise you'd imagine, while the delicate rhythm (mixed to blur into the hiss, of course) sounds like some generative gamelan model. 'Slump Wave’, meantime, is a relatively spartan experiment that sounds like the scrub of metallic percussion across a worn tape head. It could have been pulled from Deathprod's notoriously hands-on debut 'Deep Throat Puke Orgasms’, until blunt, misshapen piano chords and Burialised voices appear in the back half.
Hiorthøy keeps on wrong-footing us throughout, presenting ersatz versions of sounds we think we know, playing electronic music with folk instruments, then manufacturing folk music from purely digital elements. The real slip of the veil comes with the flatly titled 'Computer Music', a minimalist composition that hovers cautiously between both worlds; it might be strings or synths - the more you listen, the harder it is to tell.
Hiorthøy has done the impossible, not just by toppling his ponderous concept, but by making it sound so fucking beautiful and easy.
Edition of 200, includes a 12" x 12" 4 page booklet plus a download of the album dropped to your account.
Out of Stock
Boomkat Product Review:
Real special this one, pretty hard to categorise too, a future-primitivist fantasy from cult graphic designer, illustrator, filmmaker and sometime musician Kim Hiorthøy. It’s a brilliantly evocative sleight of hand that could have been recorded 40 years ago or just last week, sounding like the DIY private press of our dreams but also somehow reminding us of Aphex Twin in mechanical music box/Nannou mode. Yeah it’s a really gorgeous thing, tipped if yr into anything from those genius Heimat scores to Stroom nuggets in the modern era.
A career best from Hiorthøy, 'Ghost Note' plays like an excavated reel-to-reel of outsider experiments, complete with rhythms clanked out in a junkyard while twisted folk signatures coalesce from badly-tuned strings, woodwind and drunken piano improvisations. It would be enjoyable enough if that's all there was to it, but listen in a little closer and reality starts to crumble in front of your ears: the rhythms too flawlessly metered and precision engineered, the pruned instrumental sequences just too supple at the edges - you just don’t know if what you’re listening to is real or a simulation.
Hiorthøy has released various oddball records over the years - 2014's 'Dogs' was a meditative solo piano album rooted in hip-hop and '90s rave, while 'For The Ladies', from a decade earlier, pre-empted the obsession with diaristic field recording. In between, he’s dedicated himself to the compositional process, drafting scores for theatre, film and contemporary dance shows. That sprawling body of work has clearly provided him with a perfect vantage point for ‘Ghost Note’, bringing together many loose strands of interest to create an almost entirely new kind of music.
Just check 'Melody Set' and listen past the squeaky prepared piano and drum rattles - it's constructed like '90s electronic music, but treated as if it's an acoustic recital. On 'Slump Wave', his warm, oboe-like wheezes could have been rescued from a crumbling demo tape, caked in all the surface noise you'd imagine, while the delicate rhythm (mixed to blur into the hiss, of course) sounds like some generative gamelan model. 'Slump Wave’, meantime, is a relatively spartan experiment that sounds like the scrub of metallic percussion across a worn tape head. It could have been pulled from Deathprod's notoriously hands-on debut 'Deep Throat Puke Orgasms’, until blunt, misshapen piano chords and Burialised voices appear in the back half.
Hiorthøy keeps on wrong-footing us throughout, presenting ersatz versions of sounds we think we know, playing electronic music with folk instruments, then manufacturing folk music from purely digital elements. The real slip of the veil comes with the flatly titled 'Computer Music', a minimalist composition that hovers cautiously between both worlds; it might be strings or synths - the more you listen, the harder it is to tell.
Hiorthøy has done the impossible, not just by toppling his ponderous concept, but by making it sound so fucking beautiful and easy.
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