Maya Bennardo, Erik Blennow Calälv & Kristofer Svensson – Two skies CD

mixed by Göran Stegborn
mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi
recorded by Niclas Lindström at atlantis grammofon, stockholm in january 2022.

‘av hav’ composed by Svensson
‘in yo’ composed by Blennow Calälv

album design by Sara Lundén
album artwork: detail from ”white-robed guanyin” (late 14th century) by unknown artist, in the collection of the metropolitan museum of art

executive production by Alex Zethson

“Two Skies” är det första albumet från ett pågående samarbete mellan violinisten Maya Bennardo, basklarinettisten Erik Blennow Calälv och kacapi- musikern Kristofer Svensson. Genom att sammanföra olika musikaliska praxis – samtida konstmusik, fri improvisation, och sundanesisk musik – uppstår en hybridform av kammarmusik mellan improvisation och komposition. Ljuden är djupt förankrade i renstämda modaliteter, samtidigt som deras ögonblickliga komplexiteter och atonalitet betonas.

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“Two Skies” is the first recording of an ongoing collaboration between violinist Maya Bennardo, bass clarinetist Erik Blennow Calälv, and kacapi musician Kristofer Svensson, who have been playing together in Stockholm since 2020. Bringing together different performance and composition practices—contemporary classical, free improvisation, and Sundanese music—the music on this album represents a hybrid form of chamber music. In its origination, it is a form of music between improvisation and composition. In its poetic focus, it is music that expresses both a deeply harmonically anchored idiom of melodic constraint, as well as a free, unfettered approach to sound. The harmonic space of tones, as well as the microaudial attention to the graininess of sound itself, are approached with the same meditative focus. The result is a music of both ritual austerity and melodic lyricism.