Pêtr Aleksänder
"The Whole World Laid Out Before Me"- November '22 - Moderna Records
With this release, the band wrote:
"When we sat down to make this album we were honestly a bit lost as to what exactly we hoped to achieve. There is a lot of contradiction in the world right now - We seem to be advancing in some ways but going backwards in others - so it was hard to distill something from that into writing an album. One thing we felt was that we needed some imbalance to our own process which we found in the unlikely shape of a cheap clarinet we picked up in a charity shop. Neither of us knew how to play it but it soon became evident that it was the missing piece in our sonic puzzle, the perfectly queasy and slightly off kilter accompaniment to our usually luscious strings and piano sound palette.
Recorded in March & April 2022, ’the whole world laid out before me’ also treads new territory for us in that between the two of us we have played every instrument on the record, rather than arranging for a string quartet or quintet as is normally our process. So, whilst it features a full string section from double basses right up to violins, it has an intimate, close sound, bordering on the claustrophobic at times, rather than the more open sound of a quartet playing together in a room.
We have tried to paint a reflective journey across the album. Light and playful at times, dark and brooding at others but at all times meditative, hopefully encompassing and contemplating the constantly changing mood of the world & time in which the album was written, and laying it all out before the listener."
Press excerpts:
"I first learned of Pêtr Aleksänder back in 2021, when the duo first came on the scene with their debut, Collage, which subsequently ended up on my Best of the Year list [in an appropriately named “Music For Withered Leaves And Lonely Fishtanks” category]. A year later the project is back with a follow-up, titled The Whole World Laid Out Before Me, and it’s just as melancholic and exuberant, as wistful and celebratory, and as meditative and cerebral as before." (Headphone Commute - 4th November 2022)
"As a listener, you’ve been on a journey and woken up the other side refreshed. It’s an album made for headphones and dark rooms or solitary walks. An album for quiet reflection and silent affirmation. Pêtr Aleksänder balances intimacy and polite optimism beautifully and I hope this isn’t the last time they let loose on their own. Clearly, it brings out their creative juices in new and interesting ways." (Higher Plain Music - 4th November 2022)
On Fantasia Opening - “Listening to the subtle intricacies and clever counterpoints woven around the sweet melody at the heart of “Fantasia Opening”, we have all the evidence we need that Tom & Eliot found what they were looking for and then some." (Stationary Travels - 8th September 2022)
Spotify playlists: Not Quite Classical, Classical X, Atmospheric Piano
Apple playlists: New in Classical, Classicaltronics, Meditation Moments, Classical Edge
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"Collage"- September '21 - Moderna Records
The band wrote "Collage" in late 2020 over the course of an intensive month together in the studio. It was a different process to that of recording "Closer, Still", the band still experimenting with what Pêtr Aleksänder was all about. The making of "Collage" was more informed. Working within the sonic realm of what had gone before, Tom and Eliot sat down at the piano each morning, either together or individually, and wrote in whatever vein of mood or emotion that struck them that particular morning. The wonderful, freeing thing about writing instrumental music is that one can simply reflect a mood, tell a story without saying a word, the result sometimes channelling more intimacy and eloquence. Each piece tells its own story without words, the body of work naturally a collection or ‘Collage’. The band invite the listener to attach their own narrative to the music, either as individual pieces or as a whole.
With reviews, support and radio placements from among others Headphone Commute, A Closer Listen, Stationary Travels and Scala Radio, "Collage" marks a strong development in awareness of the band's growing presence in the modern classical world.
Press excerpts:
"Electronics serve a backing role, surfacing when needed, receding when not. The orchestral elements are like soft tides with an occasional rogue wave, typically toward the end of tracks, as in “Moving Thirds.” Through it all, there is peace, the piano always present...The album eventually makes a landing as soft as its takeoff, with a stringed lullaby and quiet chimes paving the way for one last piano-led piece, sending the listener into a calm night with no hidden dangers". (Richard Allen - A Closer Listen)
“King’s Cross, After Dark”, a musical imagining of the famous central London station during the quiet hours while the city sleeps. A faint hum of departing rail cars and disembodied voices echoing in the background set the scene as gentle piano lines frame a narrative told in a beautiful flourish of swelling strings before receding into the silence of the night – a compelling film for the mind spanning less than three minutes from start to finish, but resonating for much longer." (Stationary Travels - 29th July 2021)
Spotify playlists: Classical New Releases, Piano in the Background, Classical X, Piano de Fondo, Hintergrundmusik, The Magnificent Piano
Apple playlists: New in Classical, Classical Edge, Contemporary Classical, The A List Classical, Classicaltronics
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"Triptych I for Piano"- August '20 - Moderna Records
"Triptych II for Piano"- March '21 - Moderna Records
"Triptych III for Piano"- May '22 - Moderna Records
"Remains of the Day"- February '21 - Moderna Records
As part of Moderna Record's Summer Single Series, Pêtr Aleksänder released "Triptych I for Piano", gaining widespread recognition from a selection of renowned Spotify playlists, including Not Quite Classical, Atmospheric Piano and Classical New Releases among others.
Elaborating on the concept behind the series, Moderna wrote: "As we head into this new season filled with equal doses of hope and uncertainty, we're sharing with you the first entries of our summer single series - nine pieces by composers / pianists ‘made in isolation’ around the world. Running from June 26 - August 28 2020, the collection is deeply shaped by our current situation, with artists primarily working from home or in stripped down settings with the tools and resources available to them. The pieces are intimate, reflective, tender and hopeful, painting a portrait of our shared experience of this moment in history. The series is beautifully set to artwork by Brooklyn based visual artist Mikhail Mishin and mastered by Berlin sound artist / engineer Martyn Heyne.
Given the title of the piece, the intention was always to release the remaining pieces of the Triptych - "Triptych II for Piano" was subsequently released in March 2021, "Triptych III for Piano" in May 2022.
In the midst of these, "Remains of the Day" is a transitional piece in the band's output that in a way served as signal of the band's intention to write in the electronic/string/piano palette of "Closer, Still" and subsequent album "Collage".
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"Another World" EP - 22nd May 2020 - Kin Records
The follow-up to debut album"Closer, Still", the "Another World" EP marks a sea change in the band's musical direction. Lyrically, inspiration was drawn from a famous C.S.Lewis quote that resonated with the pair (see below). Copy, Echo, Mirage "is a richly cinematic track filled with delicately twinkling piano and lavish strings...and sees the band move away from their instrumental roots with the inclusion of a haunting vocal from Tom Hobden" (Music Existence). “The Something Else” and "The Real Thing" act as links to their past music, a chain in a new stretch of DNA, with the latter piece featuring a spoken word extract of a C.S.Lewis quote performed by Dave Le'aupepe of Gang of Youths. The EP culminates in the mysterious title track, a brooding yet expansive journey with a spiritual yearning at its core.
"If I find in myself a desire, that no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage." - C.S.Lewis
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"Clouds In The Mirror" (This Is Not A Safe Place by RIDE, reimagined by Pêtr Aleksänder) - 1st May 2020 - Wichita Records
RIDE approached the band in 2019, asking for a complete "reimagining" of their album "This Is Not A Safe Place". By intentionally not listening to the record and extracting only the vocal part from each track, Tom and Eliot were able to set about creating their own sound world, free from any knowledge of how the songs had been written and creating unique songs in their own right.
Ride's Andy Bell had this to say about the album in a press release: "Pêtr Aleksänder took our album's vocal tracks and formed an entirely new album around them, and the results are inspired, often really beautiful, and at times, totally mental. They have crafted a delicate web of string and synthesizer arrangements which draws you into a whole other world than our version of the album. I love what they've created."
The Irish Times - "a mash-up-made-in-heaven for fans of supremely harmonious electronica and hints of pop-psych."
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