Tom Blankenberg
„Music to listen to when one is alone.
It’s March 2020 and the sudden silence of spring that year changes the entire world and shifts perception.
The Düsseldorf-based composer Tom Blankenberg had just finished recording his second album.
But the situation at hand had however made the recordings sound unfitting to the times …
“There was too much in it …”
Blankenberg continues to write, rearranges and condenses
the silent presence of these months down to an essence.
Shortstories, utilizing a vocabulary from classical, jazz, avant-garde and ambient.
They tell of a new day-to-day life, of rediscovered places and suddenly audible ambient sounds.
They are about the first warm summer nights
and the writing of a letter that has long wanted to be written.
And also a little about sorrow.
“It should hurt in some moments. But it’s a sweet pain, it’s bearable.”
These ambivalent simultaneous emotions pervade the whole album.
Melancholy and wellbeing, lightness and severity resound at the same moment.
Ambiguity dissolves.
The results are 9 wonderful piano monologues that want to whisper something different into the ear of each listener and that become a sincere companion for the moment you listen.
Blankenberg’s second album is called “et”.
Links/Contact:
General: Tom Blankenberg
PR: Melanie Schrader
PUBLIC TUNE Agentur für Kommunikation & PR
Downloads
“et” will be released on April 16, 2021 on the Düsseldorf label Less Records as vinyl, CD and download as well as on all popular streaming portals.
Reviews
„Genre bending!” 10/10
PrettyInNoise
> Full Review
„Atermus is a gorgeous and inquisitive soundscape… deserves praise for its uniqueness… , like listening to a story told by a wise, elderly family member…”
Blake Palmer, piano and coffee co
> Full Review
„Soundtrack für den geglückten Tag. Muss man hören.”
Rheinische Post
> Full Review
„…as if Bill Evans were communing with Arvo Pärt.”
Misfit City
> Homepage
“This is one of the best contemplative and reflective piano albums I’ve heard. I love it!”
Pianodao
> Full Review
„Exceptional, minimal solo piano… a new breeze in the neoclassical genre”
Mellow Structures
> Full Review
„There is an intimacy in the pieces, that comes across in the style of an honest conversation.”
DRIFTING, ALMOST FALLING.
> Full Review
Album Of The Month
Coolibri, print magazine
„… plays with all the figures of silence to suspend time and beautify the notes played.”
Flabbergast
> Full Review
„…it´s jazzy, without being Jazz”
Pianoo
> Full Review
„If the scene in Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” came to life, this album could easily become the soundtrack.”
Stationary Travels
> Full Review
