OUT: album 'Opium' by Thilo Schölpen
'Opium' features ten piano pieces that defy clear categorization but can be aptly described as “neo-avant-garde.”
'Opium' is conceived like a pop album: short pieces, each of which opens up its own self-contained sonic world. In doing so, they do not follow conventional structures of melody and harmony, but rather develop from noises and everyday sounds - such as the wind in the leaves of trees, boats lapping against the dock with the waves, engine noises, shimmering, and rustling.
Thilo Schölpen uses the piano less as a melodic instrument than as a sound generator - to create textures, vibrations, and resonances. Dissonant intervals in the lower register produce overtones that sound electronic; rapidly played sequences of notes can also evoke this impression. The piano sound becomes orchestral and condenses into expansive soundscapes.
The album title 'Opium' alludes to the subtle intoxicating quality of this music: the pleasure of the unknown, the encounter with one’s own unconscious, the poetry of transience, and hidden fantasies.
With his music, Schölpen places the piano within a context of contemporary music, jazz, improvisation, neoclassical, and pop-cultural trends. A neo-avant-garde sound aesthetic with a touch of pop, played classically on an acoustic instrument.
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