French musician and composer Yann Tiersen has released a video for Ker al Loch, which you can watch below.
It's the first new music taken from Tiersen's upcoming album Kerber, which he will release through Mute Records on August 27. The follow up to 2019's Portrait (a collection of 25 newly recorded tracks from throughout his career), Kerber is very much a new chapter in the Breton artist’s work, one that begins with his most overtly electronic material to date.
“You may get this intuitive thinking of, ‘oh it's piano stuff’, but actually it's not," explains Tiersen. "I worked on piano tracks to begin with but that's not the core of it, they are not important. The context is the most important thing - the piano was a precursor to create something for the electronics to work around.”
Tiersen is planning a live event to be broadcast worldwide from Ushant (with extensive touring to follow) and the island is further represented on the graphic artwork by LA-based artist Katy Ann Gilmore, who explains, “Also inspired by landscape, I’m drawn to simple, repeated elements to convey the idea of depth and perspective. I think about lines receding to infinity, and how that helps build up the world around us. Using maps of locations indicated by Yann, I traced shorelines, fences, and other place markers that tie to the specific tracks. I then used these marks to build up shapes that inhabit a new geography as they move through space towards infinity.”
Video producer Sam Wiehl, who has previously worked with Mogwai, adds, "using the abstracted geographical imagery created by Katy Ann Gilmore [the artist behind the album’s artwork] as a starting point, and further referencing the coast line of Ushant and the natural world, we created imagery (ranging from fantastical re-imagines of landscape, seas and atmospheric conditions to the processes in micro biology and chemical reaction) to capture the beauty and scale of Tiersen’s composition."
Kerber’s release will be preceded by a book of sheet music on 20 July. Exclusively published by Hal Leonard, the folio will feature all seven pieces presented for solo piano, with preface by Tiersen.
Kerber will be released as a deluxe limited clear vinyl edition with unique artwork, in a PVC sleeve (1000 available worldwide), limited edition white vinyl with a poster, and black vinyl (all come with high definition audio download) as well as on CD and digitally.
Yann Tiersen: Kerber
1. Kerlann
2. Ar Maner Kozh
3. Kerdrall
4. Ker Yegu
5. Ker al Loch
6. Kerber
7. Poull Bojer
