Critical Distance: Erland Cooper’s Quiet Majesty
Erland Cooper is a man at ease. When is invited into his Hoxton studio, we’re greeted by his dog and newly adopted cat, the sound of the kettle bubbling away a short distance from a record player. He’s listening back to a test pressing, analysing it for mastering flaws, while insisting Clash sits down for a cup of tea. It’s all incredibly relaxing – whether it’s the music, the comforting animals, or his Orcadian lilt, was suddenly feel a thousand miles away from the East London vortex of noise and detritus.
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Yet in its own curiously low-key fashion, this studio is where the action is. Erland Cooper is – for our money – one of the most unique, consistently engaging composers of his generation. From those early group-focussed records with The Magnetic North through to his current solo adventures, his is a singular voice.
“When you get published, you get a modest advance when you get a publishing deal,” he recalls. “And instead of spending it on recreation and guitars, I bought a lease.”
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In a haphazard manner Erland had become close friends with Benge, the renowned producer and a man with one of the finest – and largest – synth collections in Europe. Tiring of the rigour of running a studio, Benge passed it on to Erland, who took the leap – and thrived.
“The best thing about it was that it meant from very early on it I didn’t have to say ‘yes’ to certain projects I didn’t necessarily need to do… and I think when you start to say ‘no’ to things you kind of define who you are a bit more. So, the studio has done that for me, and I’m very grateful for it. It’s my sea haven, my little bit of Orkney.”
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Born and raised in Stromness, Erland carries a piece of Orkney within him. As we venture down the stairs to his studio, we pass beautiful photographs featuring scenes across the Northern archipelago, while stones from his favourite Orcadian beach nestle on top of the speakers.
The computer is playing something new – a 20-minute loop of ambient pieces, crafted to help his dog go to sleep. Relaxing, he looks back on his time in London, reflecting that he “landed like a gannet” in the big city. Pretty soon, however, he’d met all sorts of people – The Verve’s Simon Tong, for example, who became a regular collaborator. Hannah Peel, who is a noted composer in her own right. People seem to tumble into his path – special people, with special skills, too.
“When I was in bands, I was always the one in the middle,” he says. “Bands often have lots of different trains running at different speeds, and different attitudes and feelings and desires, thoughts and ambitions.”
“When these projects kind of paused, my writing didn’t stop, my curiosity didn’t stop, my collaborations didn’t stop,” he says. “I guess I’ve got this joyful underdog syndrome… which I like. It makes me work hard.”
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As an artist, Erland Cooper relishes working with other people. He seeks out different voices, and invites them in to his work. “Conversations always lead to other conversations. And it’s so inspiring, it’s like you can’t stop and nothing will get in the way until you’re done. That’s where I’m at. I just go for it. It’s less about proving myself more this deep curiosity and joy. I’m playing catch up, I think.”
Much of his recent work has been intertwined with the natural world – whether it’s burying an album in the sands of Orkney, or watching an ice sculpture melt in London’s Barbican, his work carries an organic, temporal quality. “For me, my music, and certainly the field I’m ploughing, it’s really just a celebration of the natural world,” he says. “I ask myself, what are the other elements to help tell the story? Whether it’s collaborating with the soil, the air, the sea, the land… or making a sculpture and standing beside it for 16 hours until it melts. There’s a poetic narrative, of course, and it’s kind of like a slow protest.”
He adds: “Narratives to me are like a nautical map. it’s the most important thing because it tells you when you’re going wrong, and how to get it right, and when something’s finished.”
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Take his album ‘Carve The Runes Then Be Content With Silence’ – it was buried beneath his favourite beach on Orkney, and left for others to discover. “I say planted,” he laughs. “The intention was always to dig it up in three years, whether they found it or not. I f someone steals it, and someone decides to hide it in an attic somewhere. So be it. That’s the journey that that goes on.”
“’Carve The Runes And Then Be Content With Silence’ – it’s there in the title,” he points out. “Write the piece and be happy that you made it. You take a moment to be content that you made this out of nothing. It exists because you do.”
So much of Erland Cooper’s artistic life resonates with the spirit of Orkney. Pictures of the islands adorn the walls of his studio, and – as virtually every interviewer who has met him will point out – Erland hasn’t lost his accent, that gently rhythmic Orcadian twang adding a hypnotic layer to his musings. As he’s the first to admit, though, London is his base, and it’s been that way for more than a decade.
“I live in the Barbican,” he points out at one point in our conversation. “Every night, I would be woken up about 4am by a male blackbird singing in the trees. This one morning it didn’t. I woke up, but I didn’t hear the blackbird. That’s what woke me up – I was startled by nothing. And then I heard a screech. And it’s this elusive peregrine falcon that lives and roosts in the North Tower.”
Marvelling at the memory, he continues: “Here we are in the middle of the London, the most Brutalist built-up area… yet there is the natural world, carrying on doing its own thing.”
“I think what I’m getting at is that even in a deeply urban environment, I go out of my way to find that a little bit of the natural world… and it’s really important to me.”
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Yet while the intricacies of Erland Cooper’s work are bound up in his own passions and unique cross-section of interests, his music seems to connect with a vast array of people. Perhaps it’s the sumptuous beauty of his compositions, the perfume-esque quality of those slow-moving pieces, but while some peers become lost in the cerebral nature of the work Erland’s heart is always in the centre, beating like a lighthouse amid the fog.
“I remember bumping into this woman one night… I was coming out of the studio, actually, quite late. She was quite drunk, and needed a hand – one thing led to another, and I flagged down a taxi for her. She got in the taxi, and she wound down the window. ‘So what’s your name?’ she said. Erland, I replied. ‘Oh Erland? Like Erland Cooper?’ And I said, well, that’s me. She said: ‘But… you’re the man buried an album?!’ And I thought to myself: isn’t it funny how these little things can capture the imagination of someone you don’t know?”
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Erland Cooper’s new album ‘Folded Landscapes’ is out now.
Words: Robin Murray
Photography: Eleonora Collini / IG
