Cornelia
Alien pop, live electronics and some unexpected turns from big names as the Swedish polymath steps forward to the front of the stage and showcases her upcoming solo album.
About this mix
This is a mix of songs from my forthcoming album Balun along with some unreleased sketches, remixes and rarities from me and my friends.
“Underwater” is a rare tune I made with Will Ward some time ago, mainly for the fun of it rather than any serious plans for release. I remember bashing lots of pots and pans and making funny noises through an empty kitchen roll tube.
“Voyages” is a song from Dark Sky's album Imagin. I worked on three songs for this album and we did some really fun touring together all over Europe. This Redshape remix will be out on their label Monkeytown in a few weeks.
“Daylight” is a track I wrote with Jamie Woon during our RBMA experience, and although it's not on the album this Kwes refix illustrates a turning point in my career when I decided to start from scratch here in the UK.
I wrote and recorded my demos for Balun after making some good friends in London. I felt I was at the edge of a border, both physically and mentally, and that I had a new story to tell. Constantly switching between Logic and Ableton or acoustic and electronic, the songs reminded me of how I myself converted between a balanced and an unbalanced mindset as a foreigner who had to relearn basic things like language, culture and conventions.
While working on the recordings for “Steepless” together with Portico (quartet), I got to know engineer Greg Freeman. He liked my recordings and we decided to meet up in Bristol to build a more unified sound with live drums, synthesisers and lots of tweaking.
In this mix I'm sharing two songs from the album. First is “How Far Pt 1” which is a little three stem track we recorded live. “Cruising” was a bit more complex to put together and features my beloved omnichord run through a M9 loop station pedal, some excellent drum skills from Greg and a fat Dave Smith synthesiser.
Boiler Room says...
Even in left-field music, Cornelia Dahlgren has always been an off-kilter presence. Her feature spots with Portico Quartet, Dark Sky, and most notably with fellow misfit DVA on Hyperdub, have never just seen her acting as a standard interchangeable featured vocalist adding a humanising influence to high-tech music. Quite the opposite, in fact: her mannered phrasing and super-controlled voice make already-unusual tracks, if anything, even more alien.
From her arrival on the scene, too, it's been clear that she has a sense of herself as a totality of sound, word and image. Not just in her record sleeves and press shots either: a glance at her Tumblr or YouTube channel shows a lot more than a musician's diary: this is someone who turns the everyday into the unusual, and fits what she sees to her vision.
Now, on her Balun album, which she put together with Greg Freeman, she's got the chance to properly showcase her auteur vision. Not just artistically either: it's a technological vision, too, with the album released on a frankly bonkers musical poster as well as standard formats.
It's a concise statement, just eight tracks, but goes right around the houses emotionally and creatively within that frame - from the discomfortingly intimate to a cosmic sweep, from live and lo-fi wonkiness to gleaming techno, and a dozen other strange places beyond, it's the sound of a multi-faceted artist properly finding their feet.
Tracklisting
Upfront mixes
Our weekly audio mix series where we call upon the most interesting artists/DJs/record labels and ask them to peer into the near future. How they take it from there is entirely open to interpretation.
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