The Chopin Project in Bloomington, MN

This week's entry in the very-much-like-nothing-you've-ever-heard-before sweepstakes comes from Icelandic electronic musician and composer
Olafur Arnalds
and German-Japanese pianist
Alice Sara Ott
, whose recording of
Chopin
waltzes inspired the project. What you get are recordings of
piano compositions, plus original compositions by
Arnalds
based on motifs from
. In one case, "Eyes Shut/Nocturne in C minor" (track six), the two are combined.
' pieces employ his own electronic keyboard textures, plus a live string quintet. On top of this, the pianos are vintage instruments hunted down in Reykjavik, and the ambience, if you will, was manipulated by recording in various venues and with various microphones there. And, on top of all this,
adds ambient soundscapes (noise, sounds of conversation, whispers, etc.) to the music. The ideas seem packed in a bit thick. The string quintet, for example, was a sound unused by
, and it introduces an element that seems discordant with the source material. But there is a major X factor working in favor of this release: nobody has ever tried anything much like this, either with
or with any other composer, and it just might be the beginning of something new and important. Check it out and decide for yourself! ~ James Manheim