Aparde – Simple Things

Earlier this month, the Berlin based composer and musician Aparde unveiled Hands Rest, his sophomore album and second studio LP offering on Christian Löffler’s revered Ki Records. Today, he shares a Christopher Spranger directed video for the lead single ‘Simple Things’, a beautiful piece of visual texture for the song, portraying calm and cathartic scenes of Aparde floating meditatively in a lake and walking through beautiful woodland singing the affirmation like lyrics.

Speaking on the track, Aparde says:

“Simple Things” describes the power of positive or negative thinking and its influence on our life and personality. What you think today, you will become tomorrow. I’ve learned that’s exactly the way it is and as banal as it sounds, you select your own path.”

A cohesive collection of eight beautifully hand-crafted tracks, Hands Rest is a complex and personal record that reflects both the essence of Berlin’s club scene and nightlife, which Aparde undoubtedly is immersed in, and also his own intimate, emotional world which he explores through avant-garde pop.

As impressive sonically as it is technically, Aparde used a mixture of electronic sounds, analogue equipment and his own voice either as a sound element or lyrical component to explore this duality of sound. Created over the span of one year whilst Aparde was going through a difficult break-up of a long-term relationship, Hands Rest has a very cathartic feel to it that allows the listener to navigate through the varying soundscapes with a sense of purpose and storytelling. With Hands Rest, Aparde brings listeners deep into his soul, a soul that is at times conflicted and agitated and at times low-key and solemn.

“I think that I always process circumstances unconsciously in my music and that my way of thinking is full of internal conflicts. The process was very diffused in terms of time, because over the past year my life circumstances have been very complicated and often frustrating, and I had to motivate myself again and again.”

 While pain, anger and melancholy can be felt in tracks, such as ‘Tar’, whose tone is at once heavy and subdued and refers to the emotions of denial and acceptance that are so intrinsic to the human experience, Hands Rest also contains moments of transcendental insight and “breakthroughs” that evoke comfort and acceptance.

Aparde’s lyrics also expose a fragility and honesty that complements the harder electronic elements. This transparency shines through in the album’s first single ‘Hands Rest’ where Aparde sings: ‘And I feel like a tired child. Now all my senses wish to sink into the night.’

‘No Need’ is the track that perhaps most encapsulates Aparde’s duality between an avant-garde pop musician and a club artist, taking the listener from a place of heavy-hearted alienation, sadness and beauty to the stamina present in a Berlin club. It sees Aparde unfolding the flow slowly, switching the mood of the track from inward to outward, in a way that characterizes the whole album – “a development from emotional melancholy to an aggressive drive.”

With Hands Rest, Aparde brings listeners deep into his soul, a soul that is at times conflicted and agitated and at times low-key and solemn. And as he does so, the listener’s own mood is muted and lifted in a journey of quest, dance and healing.

“I learned that the power of your own thoughts can affect your personality and your own reality. Now I try to use this consciously to lead a happy life. I hope that my music can continue to make me and others happy and inspired.”

HAND REST IS OUT NOW.
CATCH APARDE PLAYING LIVE IN LONDON AT FABRIC ON 10^TH AUGUST.