‘Act now or die’. The message in Orkney-born composer Erland Cooper’s new album Folded Landscapes couldn’t be more clearer.
What makes it particularly stark, and terrifying, is that the warning was issued in 1970.
Fast forward more than five decades and Erland, who has been hailed as ‘Nature’s Songwriter’, fears the world is balanced at an ‘epoch moment’.
Folded Landscapes is Erland’s observations on climate change and how to move from despair into hope and renewal.
Musician set for Aberdeen gig
Erland will perform at The Music Hall in Aberdeen on Saturday, September 23.
The 38-year-old said: “The reason that ‘Act Now or Die’ is in there is because that was from 1970, from a news report.
“The movement represents a cacophony of different voices that have been saying the same thing for decades.
“We are in an epoch moment.
“It is important to find good solutions within that despair.”
Folded Landscapes, recorded in collaboration with Scottish Ensemble, is the fourth studio album by Erland who was a founding member of experimental band Magnetic North.
His new album Carve the Runes Then Be Content With Silence is set for release in June 2024.
Treasure hunt of clues
That will be exactly three years to the day since Erland buried the only master tape of the three-movement composition deep into the Orkney soil.
Erland also deleted all digital files and left an intriguing treasure hunt of clues as to the master tape’s location.
The plan was to let nature take its course on the tape, then dig it up three years later.
It remained under the earth, slowly eroding until Victoria and Dan Rhodes, from Kirkwall, finally solved the mystery and unearthed the recording in Stromness last autumn.
Erland said: “The tape made it half-way and maybe would not have survived another Orkney winter.
“The weather may have disintegrated it so I think it was fate.
“It is currently drying out slowly behind glass in a wooden cabinet under lock and key.
“Every month it goes from one record shop to another, slowly making its pilgrimage down south before we play it back to an audience for the first time in 2024.
“Being found has kept the narrative of patience going as it is now tantalisingly close.
“Everyone asks me what it sounds like and I say ‘I haven’t heard it’.
“It is slowly drying out on its way down south.”
Music and nature at the core
Burying the master-tape was a physical manifestation of the synergy between music and nature that is at the heart of Erland’s work.
Nature was left to alter the music through erosion and time.
It will be played exactly as it was found, complete with any gap of silence or crackles where the tape has been damaged.
The quarter-inch magnetic tape was buried along with a violin, a printed score, letter and a special carved rune stone.
Erland released clues on its whereabouts during each equinox and solstice.
He insists the music only exists in the memory of the people that played it, and his is fading – until it is unveiled as planned next year.
He said: “I was always going to dig it up in three years.
“Then release it in 2024 exactly as it sounds with all the earth and soil had done to it.
“It being found by a pair of wonderful souls has been nothing but a joy.
“Everyone around me is wondering what it sounds like and I said – wait until 2024.
“The music only exists at the moment in the memory of the players that made it.
“I can’t remember what it sounds like, I’m starting to forget.
“I read in a paper recently a time capsule was unearthed in America after almost 200 years.
“It was opened in a giant auditorium full of people eagerly anticipating what would be in the box.
“It was full of mud.
“There is a brilliant irony in that.”
Master tape to tour record shops
The master-tape will tour the nation’s record shops before arriving at the Barbican in London on June 8, 2024 where it will be played for the first time.
Before then Erland will perform in Aberdeen, a city close to his heart as he regularly travelled to the Granite City by ferry from Orkney.
He said: “Aberdeen was like a gateway for me and it will be lovely to be back.
“Recently I sat with an old fashioned piece of paper and pen working on a set-list for Aberdeen.
“Thinking how can I make this tour feel like it presents new work and also tips a hat to the older work from my Orkney songs.
“Remarkably there is a real thread and they join together really well.
“The new piece is quite heavy and I ask the audience to be patient with it.
“It is a multi-movement that is a very slow glacial ascent.
“The first movements are like climbing up glacial peak and quite hard work.
“It is not until movement five that you start to toboggan downhill in a more hopeful manner.
“I hope the music takes the audience to another place, whether real or imagined, and we get a sense of transportation.
“But that is a two way thing with the audience and the musicians.”