Kosmogon is a new keyboard-based progressive outfit featuring Anekdoten's Nicklas Barker and classically trained pianist Sophie Linder. Using an eclectic range of organic keyboards, including the Arp Odyssey, a real Mellotron, a Farfisa organ, and a Logan string machine Kosmogon create a tapestry of contemplative minimalist pastoral soundscapes.
The duo have streamed the 25-minute title track to their debut album Mässan, which you can listen to below. The two-track album, which also features the 22-minute Somnus, was recorded in the autumn of 2020 in their cottage in the Swedish countryside. It's an homage to Sweden's breathtaking nature in six parts, symbolising different phases of evening, night, and early morning in the forest. Somnus was composed as an improvisation around the same time as Mässan, using two Mellotrons and several echo units, edited and compiled at home in Stockholm in early 2021.
Mässan will be released on August 27 on Tonbad Grammofon, a new label dedicated to sounds from the outer limits.
"Mässan (The Mass) started with a sound, a drone that I had made on a vintage Logan String Ensemble with a phaser and an echo device," explains Barker. "When Sophie heard it she started to build around it.”
"I'm a classically trained pianist and Nicklas had recently introduced me to old electronic experimental music (Éliane Radigue, Bernard Parmegiani, Luc Ferrari), and kraut records like early Kraftwerk, Harmonia & Ash Ra Tempel," adds Linder. "I felt freed from the conventions, rules and etiquettes of being a classically trained pianist. That, and the fact that Nicklas’ home studio was right underneath my nose probably contributed to the creative impulse.
"Between the recording sessions in our cottage up north we took walks in the forrest. Hearing the sounds of nature we felt like Mässan should sound like the creatures of the night gathering to worship nature, and that’s the title: Mässan - composed of the heritage from the melodicism of old Swedish church music, electronic music from the 60s and 70s and sounds from the beautiful Swedish nature."
Mässan will be available on vinyl, CD and also cassette.
Komogon: Mässan
1. Mässan
2. Somnus
