‘Nature’s songwriter’ Erland Cooper brings the sound of the Orkney Islands to Lancaster library

Nature’s songwriter, Erland Cooper, brings the sounds of his childhood home to Lancaster Library this month, in collaboration with Get It Loud In Libraries. Born and raised on the archipelago of Orkney, Cooper entered the music industry as guitarist and singer of folk-rock band, Erland and the Carnival and later part of experimental group The Magnetic North.

Becoming increasingly stressed and claustrophobic with living in the bustling city of London and yearning for the connection to community from his childhood home, Cooper’s solo projects have explored new terrain through an all too familiar environment.

What began as an innocent nostalgic exercise, creating improvised piano recordings named after Orcadian dialect for the island’s birds, manifested itself in an album trilogy shaped by the air, sea and land of Orkney.

Solan Goose, Cooper’s debut solo album, includes songs such as Shalder (oystercatcher) Tammie Norie (puffin) and Cattie-Face (short-eared owl) and mingles the birds’ call with mottled piano.

Cooper combined electronic and classical music, Neolithic history and the poetry of George Mackay Brown to create an album that ‘pulses with Orcadian spirit’ (The Quietus).

The second album of the trilogy, Sule Kerry, was released earlier this year and continued Cooper’s meditative approach to aural geography.

In this ‘hymn to the sea’ (Clash), the listener is able to hear field recordings captured by Cooper of tides coming in at dusk under a lifeboat pier, the shutter of a camera and passing fishing boats.

These ambient sounds help to create emotive ‘sonic postcards’ from Orkney to London that captures the ‘insular kind of magic’ (Loud And Quiet) of Cooper’s childhood home. Joined by the multi-talented quartet of musicians, Cooper brings a slice of Orkney’s rugged beauty to Lancaster Library at 2.30pm on on November 17, and it will be a great opportunity to see nature’s songwriter in a unique, intimate venue. Tickets are available on See Tickets.