With Companion, Otto A Totland completes his trilogy of personal, sparse piano compositions, following in the footsteps of 2014’s Pinô and 2017’s The Lost.
As a self-taught pianist, Otto further determines himself as a timeless composer who follows nothing but his own gut and heart. The outcome is something so pure it’s hard to not be affected. The development of his pieces over the years has grown into something so himself that it’s almost immediately recognisable. With Companion he has matured in his own craft, and the various pieces here feel confident and absolutely beautiful in a way that sees the end of the trilogy as a warm, empathic document for the times.
As with the previous two albums, Companion was again recorded at Nils Frahm’s Berlin studio for optimal warmth and space, Pinô and The Lost at his previous Durton Studio while Companion at the historic Studio 3 at Funkhaus. All three records are released by Sonic Pieces in hand-crafted limited edition covers as a statement showing that craftmanship and humanity still exists in this world constantly moving towards the exact opposite.
This quote by Norwegian philosopher Guttorm Fløistad seems an appropriate connection to both Otto’s music and the way we are all heading : “The only thing for certain is that everything changes. The rate of change increases. If you want to hang on you better speed up. That is the message of today […] In order to master changes, we have to recover slowness, reflection and togetherness. There we will find real renewal.” With this in mind, Companion is exactly what it’s title sets out to be. A friend that can follow and comfort in both good or bad times.
Erik and Otto started out as both friends and enemies in the small town of Langesund, south of Norway. There they went to school together and after some time begun playing around with music and sampling on their computers (seeing they were both computer nerds at the time). Finding out at a later point that they shared mutual musical ideas, a collaboration was born, named Deaf Center. Fast-forward about 10 years and although still working together now and then, things have changed and different paths have been walked.
As seen on their latest Deaf Center album Owl Splinters, they here showcase 2 different sides of the coin although this time under their own names. Actually not only is this Otto´s first ever solo material released under his own name, but this is also Erik´s first piece made using only percussion and feedbacked electro-acoustic guitar.
The Lost follows and expands on Otto A Totland ́s intimate debut solo piano album Pinô from 2014. Once again several days were spent in Nils Frahm ́s legendary Durton studio to lay down both composed and improvised pieces of quiet beauty.
While mostly residing in a small Norwegian coastal town, Otto has been trying to escape the constant movement towards fast paced, polluted lives, where it seems like sounds and impressions never stop. The Lost can be seen as a countermovement towards this development – something genuine and personal. There ́s a lightness felt while listening, and yet an overwhelming feeling of melancholy and nostalgia captures you through the lenght of the album. It could be described as pure timelessness captured with the best vintage recording technique you can find, opening up to a new wider scope and detail while keeping the intimacy as if it would be played right besides you. The humming of the world and the warmth of the piano shines through like a natural accompaniment as they enthrall from beginning to end.
Leaves are falling and times are changing. The horizon seems dark. Otto seems to capture both the questions and feelings we have about our surroundings. Not judging them, but easing us into a mindset that feels hopeful. A sort of quiet relief that things might actually work out no matter how dark it can look.
Otto A Totland’s modern compositional elements are most widely recognized as half of the Norwegian duo Deaf Center, where his melancholic, intricate piano work provides haunting relief to the beds of noise and deep strings from Erik K Skodvin. Pinô is the first full-length release by Totland, though his solo work has been released once, as the 5-minute A-side of Sonic Pieces 7inch Harmony From the Past. Otto’s previously brief vignettes are now expanded into a fully personal realization of his own style.
Initial track Open fills itself with heavy, knowing pauses that quickly become overwhelmed with the desire to understand what’s to come. Each silence leads into quick flutters of keys, preparing the listener for a vast terrain of giddy beauty, bleak depths, and true contentedness. Pinô quickly recalls deep winter; in front of a fireplace for days on end, you lose how far along you’ve ventured into the 18 tracks without any idea how far is left to go. The experience feels inevitable, with no other option but to curl up somewhere cozy and appreciate the sense of timelessness that Totland has created. His album is a haunting modern compositional treasure, expressed through instrumentals completely unique to Totland and captured masterfully by Nils Frahm at Durton Studios.
With Pinô, Otto A Totland appears out of the Norwegian landscape, sharing an achievement that will provide a relief during the brooding winter darkness. Though a highly personal endeavor, the recognizable continuation of Totland’s compositions will attract fans of Deaf Center, and the cinematic and classical components of his solo work will hold sway for those familiar with Harold Budd or Dustin O’Halloran.
Two new Sonic Pieces records are officially out and streaming as of today. Otto A Totland´s new album Companion is now available (LTD LP / LTD CD and Standard LP edition). Though beware, low stock on LTD LPs. سایه [sāje] by Oliver Doerell (Dictaphone, Swod) and Iranian percussionist Jawad Salkhordeh is also available in an edition of 300x. This record comes packaged in a full-coloured, spot varnished sleeve as part of the next chapter of our PATTERN series. Our Berlin store is also currently hosting an exhibition with collages by Helga Raimondi connected to this release.
Oliver Doerell & Jawad Salkhordeh –سایه [sāje]
It finds its home in the unknown, unexplored areas of sound, in the liberal, sprawling paths within; areas not yet mapped out. Spellbinding rhythms slip into the fabric of its sound with ease, and the music seems to be well-balanced. – Fluid Radio on Saje
Immersive, richly textured cross-fertilization of Persian traditional music & Ambient Electronics. – Hardwax
Otto A Totland – Companion
From the delicate melodies to his beautiful playing, from the tastefully somber storytelling to the technical attention put in each recording, and finally from the overall delivery to the completely absorbing transfer of his mind to mine, through the keys and the fingers, that is what makes this Norwegian composer stand out among the rest. – Headphone Commute on Companion
Totland’s music implies that we have a choice: to return to the rat race, the relentless pace of industry and commerce, the numbing extravagance of mindless entertainment; or to pause, not because we have to, but because we want to – A Closer Listen on Companion
Low Distance is Deaf Center´s third full-length studio album and perhaps the most focused effort by the Norwegian duo to date. After their last record Owl Splinters (2011) was quite an eclectic endeavor, Erik K Skodvin & Otto A Totland draw their sound back into something more quiet and minimal.
The record starts with a piece of sweeping analougue electronics. It´s a spacious, yet dynamic opener that leads directly into the static tones and piano motivs of Entity Voice, which balances a new sense of abstractation with the classic Deaf Center sound. It´s warm and close while sounding like it´s set in the outer horizon. Overall Low Distance feels both alien and familiar with its atonal synths, close pianos and drowned out noises.
After meeting in studio for the first time since 2011, the recordings came out of a 3 day session in 2017. It was then mixed at both EMS Stockholm and at Erik´s home studio over a longer period to create a blend of deeply layered as well as stripped down pieces. Both Erik & Otto have been active individually since their last meeting as Deaf Center: Otto released 2 solo piano albums, while Erik has furthered his descent into musical abstractation both under his own name and as Svarte Greiner. It´s long overdue to hear them connect their personalities into something new. Low Distance is a welcome return replete with beauty, mystery and uncertainty.
Erik K Skodvin and Otto A Totland have been a big part of Sonic Pieces over the years, and we are very happy to see them re-unite as Deaf Center for a new full-length album. The record is called “Low Distance” and will be released in March. More on this soon. Meanwhile, a first track of the album entitled “Movements / The Ascent” is already available digitally on all platforms : Bandcamp – Boomkat – Spotify – Itunes
A Score for Darling is both the sound track for the Danish film „Darling“ (2017) as well as a collection of outakes from it.
Raúl Pastor Medall (Rauelsson) and Erik K Skodvin (Svarte Greiner & 1⁄2 of Deaf Center) were paired together to work on the accompanying music after the director, Birgitte Stærmose wanted to try a new direction. Both together and individually they have created a highly affecting collection of pieces to a film that is not afraid of pushing the emotional content to the max, centered around the story of a dancer on the rollercoster ride of her life. This is also the first time either of them have made a full lenght sound track, making it their debut on the big screen.
The music and instrumentation heard on the album is brimming with dynamics and diversity, featuring violin by Christoph Berg, cello by Anne Müller as well as a mass of other sounds like church organs, synths, guitar amp violation, electro-acoustics, piano and more, all layered together into 15 beautiful and devastating fragments of mood. The final piece of the album „Breathe“ – featuring Otto A Totland on piano and Katinka Fogh Vindelev (We like We) on voice – can be seen as their own lamenting end title to a longer period of work with this album, finally finished.
‘Flare’ might be the debut album under his own name, but it is far from Erik K Skodvin’s first musical endeavour. As a member of Deaf Center (along with Otto Totland) he built up a swift following of fans devoted to his precise attention to detail and knack for creating the most unassumingly beautiful tracks of gloomy soundscapes. This clearly wasn’t enough though, as Skodvin dragged his sound into darker pastures, tying to it the Svarte Greiner moniker and allowing his collection of haunted sounds to cough, splutter and groan mercilessly. ‘Flare’ marks a new beginning for Skodvin, and the electronic processes that have come to define his sound are now all but gone. Untreated acoustic sounds and the blankly terrifying sounds of bare rooms form the backbone of this new approach, and while ‘Flare’ still bears all the fingerprints of Skodvin’s patented technique, it also sounds fresh and different. At times, as the album slowly reveals itself, one could be forgiven for thinking they had discovered a chewed up cassette of Finnish forest folk- dark and grainy but also live, as if a dark ritual had been captured somewhere remote in the morning fog. Through his selection of instruments, which includes piano, guitar, violin and occasionally voice, Skodvin runs through the recordings with a ghost-like touch. There is the sense that these vignettes already existed, Skodvin merely dusted them off and lit the blue touchpaper.
‘Flare’ might not have the noise, grit and dense distortion of its predecessors, but what it lacks in bone shaking volume, it makes up for in subtlety and sheer mood. Through careful use of instruments and Skodvin’s unmistakable ear for silence, he has created a record as tense and unforgiving as anything in his catalogue. It just sounds a little different, and that is never a bad thing. Listen with caution…
