Cornelia – Balun

On 15th June 2015 musical bright spark Cornelia releases her powerfully enchanting, intelligent pop-filled debut album ‘Balun’ on Camp Mozart records. In addition to a standard digital release, ‘Balun’ is  available as a limited edition audio poster, which marks the first step in a series of technological musical endeavours, brought to you by Cornelia in collaboration with Novalia.

Cornelia’s sweet, spectral vocals plus subtle flourishes of grime, bass, IDM, ambient and synth adorn eerily beautiful songs, which although pop savvy possess a level of gravitas and proper sonic depth.

Following a fruitful two years writing, recording and touring with the likes of Portico (Quartet), Dark Sky, Bonobo, Kwes and Scratcha DVA, ‘Balun’ marks the movement of Cornelia’s full focus to the solo artist limelight. On the album, Cornelia ruminates:

“I wrote ‘Balun’ on the brink of a big change in my life – moving to the UK. I felt I was at the edge of a border, both physically and mentally, having to relearn basic things like language, culture and conventions. I had a new story to tell.

I started to shift my mindset by reaching down into a bag of tunes I had written since I started my transition from Sweden to the UK. I grabbed a fistful of them; some I had produced on my laptop and some I had simply sung into the voice recorder on my phone.

Because of the different platforms I recorded them on, I decided I needed another pair of ears, so I took refuge in Bristol with drummer and engineer Greg Freeman who I met working Portico’s album. Together we finalised a sound based on synthesisers, live drums and intimate vocals. We recorded in kitchens, bedrooms, hallways and churches.”

Cornelia Dahlgren’s formative years in Sweden were spent making songs, singing in choirs and playing in bands to the backdrop of Öland’s magnificent landscapes. She  participated in the first season of Swedish Idol, but dropped out in the final stages upon deciding the manufactured approach wasn’t for her, helped in part from some sound advice from Robyn. As a result she founded the label Camp Mozart and began crafting esoteric and elemental sounds.

Cornelia debuted with the colourful ‘Capsule’ EP before close friend Jamie Woon persuaded her to move to London, following which she released two EPs called ‘By The Fire’/’Now & Hereafter’ and ‘Aquarius Dreams’.

Another single ‘Stormy Weather’ was released on Exceptional Records and that period also saw inspired collaborations with two widely-acclaimed artists – Portico Quartet and Rinse FM’s Scratcha DVA.

The song ‘Steepless’ was written by Cornelia and Portico Quartet in close dialogue and was released on their third, self-titled album.

‘Pretty Ugly’, written and produced by Scratcha DVA and Cornelia, became the title track of his album on Hyperdub, which Mary Anne Hobbs called “a beautiful track with a dazzling sound”.

Cornelia and Bonobo wrote ‘Pieces’ together for his album ‘The North Borders’ and she sang at several of his shows, including a huge concert at Alexandra Palace, to 11,000 rapturous fans.

She then hooked-up with Dark Sky, where she had three songs on their ‘Imagin’ album for Modeselektor’s Monkeytown records.

Following so much fruitful collaboration, combined with her interest in creative technology, it’s unsurprising that Cornelia should combine these elements for her latest project. About a year ago Dr Kate Stone from Novalia  invited Cornelia to her office in Cambridge, after Cornelia sent Kate a fan mail about her TED Talk. They quickly made friends.

Together with Novalia, Cornelia has made a printed album poster, using technology enabled by integration of conductive ink, capacitive touch and conventional electronics to provide a musical experience in a new format, combining science, design and music; when touched the poster plays the songs of the album through a built in speaker and includes buttons for volume up and down.

“As a technology company, we have loved working with Cornelia to create beautiful interactive LP posters that use our process in this way”, says Dr Stone. “We’ve enjoyed creating a project together which puts music back into a beautiful, physical object that can be kept and treasured.”

This poster is the first step in a series of innovative musical presentations that Cornelia and Novalia are developing together, including a midi controller project for live stage.

Using the same technology as the ‘Balun’ poster, their printed MIDI is a combination of printed capacitive touch, MIDI processing and Bluetooth Smart. Cornelia has been helping them beta test their first prototype, providing valuable feedback from a musician’s perspective. They’re also interested in looking at how MIDI can be used for stage and performance. As printed MIDI can potentially turn any surface into a MIDI controller, whether the surface is flat or curved, it offers great opportunities for integration into different areas of the stage; objects, walls and potentially wearables could all become MIDI enabled using Novalia’s technology.

“Kate is an absolute genius. I brought my laptop with my live set in Ableton and a MIDI controller to show her how I work, and said that it would be amazing to be able to build my own controller in paper one day”, explains Cornelia. “Kate had started to look into the possibilities of MIDI but had not heard of Ableton before, so when I hooked her up with a friend at Ableton HQ, it all started to make sense and we realised we were onto something. When Apple finally released the new enhancements to Core MIDI everything caught fire and I can’t wait to get some new gear on the road.”

With big tunes and big ideas to match, expect to hear a lot from Cornelia in the near future…