Erland Cooper new single feat. Paul Weller, Galya Bisengalieva, Robert Ames & over 300 6 Music listeners

ERLAND COOPER’s specially commissioned piece featuring over 300 field recordings sent in to Chris Hawkins’ BBC Radio 6 Music programme, alongside a 130-year-old recording of the voice of Florence Nightingale plus Galya Bisengalieva (Solo Violin), Robert Ames (Solo Viola) and Paul Weller, is released today as a two-track download, backed with an instrumental version.

The recordings, sent in by BBC Radio 6 Music listeners, are sounds and observations that have felt more noticeable during lockdown from birdsong, from garden sprinklers to a baby’s hiccup, each working within the piece to mark this very unique time. Watch the making of film here: https://youtu.be/UMaEuaFmSbQ.

Listen to ‘A Nightingale Sings Outside Our Window’:



100% of proceeds from the single will be donated to Black Minds Matters UK.

Chris Hawkins expands, “I’m a long-time fan of Erland’s, he has an amazing way of working magic with sound. Listener’s to my show responded in their droves to our request for their isolation sounds, which he then weaved into this soundscape. It feels like a hopeful musical snapshot full of aural moments, reminding everyone that everyday sounds - that may usually go unnoticed - can lift our mood and help us feel better”

Erland Cooper recently released the third and final album in his triptych of albums shaped by the Orkney islands where he grew up. Hether Blether is out now via Phases.

Hailing from the archipelago of Orkney in Scotland, the contemporary composer and multi-instrumentalist has so far explored the birdlife (2018’s Solan Goose), the sea (2019’s Sule Skerry) and, on Hether Blether, he turns his attention to the land and its people. Named after a hidden island in folklore, said to rise green and fertile from time to time from the foam. Inspired, in essence, by Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown, filmmaker Margaret Tait and composer Peter Maxwell Davies before him, this final album is a celebration of the Islands’ memory held in timeless landscape, community, myth and mythology. The album looks to the past through the stories of the island and to the present and future through its people.

To accompany the album, Erland is also making a children’s sheet music book for beginner to intermediate, piano, violin and recorder called ‘Fledgling’. It involves pictures from a local school on the Island, local artists, as well as contributions from nature writers and will be released later in the year.