I was so honoured to see Rococochet included in A Closer Listen's Top Ten Modern Composition for 2017 list.

I clipped the relevant bits below, but click on the link to see the legendary company I'm keeping here! *chuffed* Thanks ACL!



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I was recently asked my opinion on Youtube, and its positive impact on music cultures…

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I was chuffed to be invited to create a Headphone Commute mix to coincide with Rococochet's release! It features some of my tracks, alongside music by Brian Eno, Library Tapes, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Somnambulist, kučka, and some random audio recordings from my phone, all pushed through my grotty 1/4" tape return.

Currently 1st place on the Experimental and Eclectic mixcloud charts! If you're heading to work this morning, give it a go and enjoy.




Track Listing:
0:00: Malio Malio – Leah Kardos (Rococochet 2017)
2:28: Stillness – Hilary Hahn & Hauschka (Silfra 2012) (tape return)
3:54: Contact Mic – Leah Kardos (The Exquisite Corpse 2017)
7:17: Fragment II – Library Tapes (Fragment 2008)
7:40: Voicemail: Singing Telegram, 22nd August 2012
8:42: Innocenti (excerpt) – Brian Eno (The Shutov Assembly 1992)
9:05: Phone recording: Crickets in the Smoky Mountains, Tennessee, 31st August 2013
9:55: My Cumulus Veil – Leah Kardos (Rococochet 2017)
14:16: Hypnopompia – Somnambulist (Automating 2012) (tape return)
14:44: sun moon blood night – kučka (kučka EP 2012)
19:42 Cat’s Eye – Leah Kardos (Rococochet 2017)
24:14 Buffering Landscape (excerpt) – Kara-Lis Coverdale & LXV (Electronica 2015)
28:20: DFACE Alt Mix (extended) – Leah Kardos (SEQUENCE3 2012)
35:00: Highly Active Girls (instrumental remix) – Leah Kardos (Machines 2013)
39:22: Somnia Tape Loop – Leah Kardos (outtake 2017)
40:15: By This River – Brian Eno (Before and after Science 1977)
43:00: Streuung Teil Ii (excerpt) – Atom ™ (Winterreise 2012)
44:02: Phone recording: drunken recipe research, Bedford, 11th August 2012
44:25: Somnia Dub – Leah Kardos (Rococochet 2017)

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Rococochet comes out tomorrow! I'm excited and nervous for people to finally hear it.

I tried my best to use analogue instruments, technologies and processes as often as possible in this project - that meant no programming or editing (my comfort zones) and recording layers of human imperfection and straight-up ERROR to tape and having to live with the results (certainly NOT my comfort zone). The "rococo" reference in the title is all about a fresh style shift. I was feeling personally a bit bogged down in the 'ambient' piano-triads-with-lots-of-reverb-plus-chopped-beats world, so I thought of the Rococo artists with their humour, wit, eye for left field detail and general lightness of being, and tried to adopt some of that into what I was doing.

I read over and over again that Bowie's process regularly involved a risk, make oneself uncomfortable, going out into the water to the point where your feet no longer touch the bottom. So that's inspiring and comforting. I don't really make music for any other reason than the sheer love and absolute delight of the creative process, so why stick to the well-trodden path?

This is a long, roundabout way of saying I hope some people enjoy listening to it, as vulnerable as it made me feel to create it, and as much as the process of making it taught me new things about music and myself.

Available tomorrow to stream on Spotify and Apple Music, and to buy from iTunes and Bandcamp. Photo of my face below, by the very talented J.Slee.

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My new album Rococochet will be out on Sept 5th. It is now available to pre-order, and the track 'Cat's Eye' is available to stream.

I was gearing up to write a bit of a blog post about the piece, to explain where I was coming from and the significance of the title… but it's actually best explained with this image collage:

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Over the last few months I have had a grand old time tracking and mixing my upcoming album, Rococochet (out in September!).

This record is my palate cleanser, something to counter a growing feeling in myself and how I perceive my little corner of the ‘contemporary classical’ landscape, which can sometimes feel very serious and a bit humourless. For my own personal rococo statement, I wanted my music to feel fresh and fun again: to make space for moments of wit and charm; use strong colours; to completely shed any self-seriousness and be open to possibilities.

The album has been created using analogue instruments and recording techniques at Visconti Studio in London. I brought in some amazing players: Paul Glover on drums, Ben Dawson on piano, Lara James on sax, Charles Mutter, Patrick Savage and Richard Harwood on strings. I turned my inexperienced hand to tuned percussion (vibes, marimba, glocks and bells), and vocals. Rather than use virtual instruments and samples (like I usually do) this time I played the CP40, MiniMoog, Moog Sub37 and Mellotron.

I can't wait for people to hear it. x

Today required mallets... #viscontistudio

A post shared by Leah Kardos (@leah.kardos) on May 13, 2017 at 2:25pm PDT

Taking today's vibraphone recordings and mangling them with the a80

A post shared by Leah Kardos (@leah.kardos) on May 13, 2017 at 2:27pm PDT

Drum day #viscontistudio #recording

A post shared by Leah Kardos (@leah.kardos) on May 21, 2017 at 8:11am PDT

What a cute little saxophone Lara has there #viscontistudio

A post shared by Leah Kardos (@leah.kardos) on May 27, 2017 at 7:58am PDT

Sax day 🎷👌

A post shared by Leah Kardos (@leah.kardos) on May 27, 2017 at 11:28am PDT

my new aesthetic #obliquestrategies

A post shared by Leah Kardos (@leah.kardos) on Jun 15, 2017 at 8:35am PDT

Final day of tracking: Ben doing his thing on the Steinway, Duds being a top notch studio pupper. 🎹

A post shared by Leah Kardos (@leah.kardos) on May 28, 2017 at 11:59am PDT

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Here's a special mix that I put together for Ears Have Ears: Unexplored Territories in Sound, a weekly experimental music show on FBi Radio Sydney. This mix features stems and reconfigured elements from some of my pieces from the past.



Check it out, if you wanna.

Listen to the radio program in full here: http://fbiradio.com/945fm/programs/ears-have-ears/2017-05-18/

(edit)
Seeing my name appear on a list along side this guy… *squee*
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"Over the course of an hour, eleven artists (twelve if you count the duo) adopt what they wish to salvage or repeat in the work of the prior contributor.  As expected, the piano and strings continue to sound like Kardos in Madeleine Cocolas’ “Stalactite”, which comes across as a reinvention.  But as the markers are blurred or erased (like pencil lines, faded yet still discernible), the song begins to morph.  Put to rest any fears that listening to The Exquisite Corpse is like listening to a long remix album, because it’s a set of constant change.

New elements enter almost immediately ~ voice in the first, followed by Ed Carlsen’s peculating percussion in the second.  Tambour knocks the music back to modern classicism, adding a sense of sudden poignance.  One begins to realize the importance of tone in interpretation: more than just the notes, but the feeling embedded in the notes.  And oh, those bells!  The opening minute of Jim Perkins’ “Flutter” turns the proceedings decidedly dark (blame the cello!), but when the deep drums enter, the track becomes a battle between darkness and light, the final victor yet to be decided.  Lorenzo Masotto wrenches the piece in the direction of the sun ~ which is when an unexpected visitor appears.

Look what they’ve done to my song, Ma!  Yes, it’s Kardos herself, pressing reset, reeling it all in.  But instead of being horrified, she seems pleased, making only minor modifications, ending in static ~ a thread picked up by Mark Harris at the beginning of his elongated entry.  Holkham pushes things even further, adopting the ambience of Harris for a nearly nine minute extension.  Where is the original?  By now, it’s hard to tell.  When applied to the process, the title of Antonymes’ “Half Life” says it all.  The elements break down over time.  Jacob David and Thomas Haahr slowly spin down into a segment of quiet field recordings before Linghas brings it full circle ~ a cylinder instead of a straight line.  We can start again from here.  The corpse is exquisite, but very much alive." (Richard Allen)
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“Spirit Level's Kindred Spirits is a demonstration of how artists are pushing the traditions of piano music forward.

It’s in the subtle textural details of Leah Kardos’ ‘Novice’, where the percussion flutters in the right channel and the high notes dart between, or the mechanical chirp that gives way to noirish mood-setting on Re/search/er’s ‘Love Will You Love Me When I’m Not The 1’, or the wooden tapping on the keyboard on Luke Howard’s cover of Telling’s ‘Monuments’."

https://strinewhine.bandcamp.com/album/strine-whine-issue-seventeen

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Piano day part 2!

Here's a little idea inspired by the wind chime someone has on my street, that I'm forever hearing… Available as a free download EP Pairs, which also features an amazing companion piece, 'Junk Bonds' by Jim Perkins.

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Was feeling very chuffed to be invited by Tim Shiel to take part in this project for Piano Day 2017. It features contributions from some excellent Australian musicians, including Braille Face, Re/search/er, Luke Howard and Sophie Hutchings.

My piece was created in an evening especially for this compilation. Earlier that day I had been listening to my “Ultimate Shuffle” playlist of Spotify, which threw up Michael Jackson’s ‘Stranger in Moscow’ (great track) and I was struck by the super quiet piano solo and how cool the chord progression is in the verses. I ended up ripping both those details off for my piece ‘Novice’. I called it that because it sounded so tentative to me at the time, like a piano solo that was afraid to speak up. But then when you layer enough of those soft voices you can get a sense of confidence, depth and detail. I guess that was the feeling I was reaching for.

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