Efterklang, or "remembrance" or "reverberation" (how does one word mean two entirely different things?) resonates loudly with the spirit of Piramida. In order to create Piramida, apparently the band took a trip to an abandoned (in 1998) Russian mine, where they took sound samples and recorded for nine days. The mine was on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, part of the Svalbard archipelago. See image here, click to enlarge and you will see a town called Pyramiden. In that town they discovered an empty concert hall with the worlds northernmost grand piano (so they claim), empty oil tanks and other materials they used to take some 1,000 audio samples. From that experience in 2010, they collaborated on a film, An Island, with Vincent Moon, see here, before compiling the sounds for what would become Piramida. I can't describe how they used all these sounds better than Efterklang does on their website, so you can read an excerpt as follows:
"It was Brauer who made sense of the sounds the three had brought home. Returning to his memories of visiting Piramida, he selected noises and carefully treated them to produce incredibly standalone sounds for use in the album’s songs. What might sound like an organ of some kind on the track ‘Sedna’ is actually a combination of recordings from the aforementioned fuel tank and grand piano – but it’s only at an atomic level that these elements remain, so delicately have they been synthesised into a workable instrument.
And it’s this process, of taking sounds found organically in an alien landscape and using them to power ‘traditional’ progressions of notes, of rhythms and melodies, that forms the framework for so much of Piramida. The hollow tones of ‘Told To Be Fine’ are sourced from ornate glass lamps, given new life long after their original use had become redundant. The very first sounds on the record, on opener ‘Hollow Mountain’, are metal spikes being struck, protruding from a bizarre-looking oil drum the band cheerily named Miss Piggy. The synth sounds of ‘Apples’ are created from a microsecond of a wonky piano note – from the aforementioned grand. Throughout, the album contains sounds that quite simply have never been heard before. What you’re hearing is a very singular kind of sonic alchemy." Read more here.
I think that all sums up very well what you'd expect to hear, but I'll give you a bit more to listen for anyway. Efterklang, in Piramida, as I cannot yet speak for their previous albums because I haven't heard them before, reminds me of The National, Sufjan Stevens at times (take a listen to the flourishing ripples at the beginning and end of "Sedna"), Rubik, Junip, Elbow and Bon Iver, to name a few [or many] that popped into my head while listening. There's a grand sense of epic vitality within the notes of Piramida, even with its semi-emo sounding vocals and often Downtempo pared down verses. It's very thought out, evocative and almost like slowed down pop tunes. It could almost be called Post-Pop.
To wrap things up, and allow you to delve into the beautiful, drifting, yet sometimes cold/harsh world of Piramida yourself, there are a number of places you can listen to parts of the album or other Efterkland music: their Bandcamp has a sample song from their previous albums, here (clearly it was used while they still had their 4th member, because the header has a picture with them included); and Efterkland's SoundCloud page has some remixes of other artists work, some remixes of their songs and a few tracks from Piramida. I have put the track "Apples" among the 'Monthly Sample Tracks' as well. Enjoy!
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