Celebrating Efterklang’s new Album Piramida Wednesday from 7 pm

The roots were first laid in 2010, when the band first saw photographs of a forgotten settlement called Piramida slowly dying on Spitsbergen, an island midway between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole. This former Russian mining facility was once home to a thousand people, and was abandoned in January 1998, almost overnight. Casper, Mads and Rasmus visited Piramida in August 2011 with no pre-conceived ideas and not a single note written and over nine days accumulated over a thousand field recordings from the abandoned buildings and their dramatic surroundings, including the world’s northernmost grand piano they discovered in Piramida´s old concert hall. The beautiful outcome is Efterklang’s fourth album, it will be released September 24th and is going to be celebrated on wednesday with us. Join us from 7 pm for a special night !

1. With your new album Piramida you literally explored new territory. How would you describe the sound, what’ new? What was the main interest with this album?

It is a more direct sound, maybe a more honest album. The soundscapes are not as dense as on previous albums and the mood is perhaps a bit darker. Our very initial idea was to start the album by going on this 9 day audio expedition to this abandoned ghost town on Spitsbergen in the Arctic. We sampled the town and turned all the recordings into beats, ambiences and instruments that which we then used to write the songs for this album.
The album took its start in Piramida on Spitsbergen, but really it is a Berlin album. Everything was recorded here with the help of local heroes like Peter Broderick, Nils Frahm, Earl Harvin, the brass players from Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra and the new kid in town Francesco Donadello who has this amazing new studio up in Weissensee where he mixed the album.

2. What is needed for a proper celebration of piramida?

We have invited some special friends to perform some live music, but we will not play ourselves. We prefer to mingle around and hand out hugs and toasts to friends and strangers. We will play live in Berlin at Volksbühne in December. To celebrate Piramida properly we need a lot of prosecco and a lot of amazing friends and people not to forget a lovely organic BBQ also suitable for vegetarians.