Erland Cooper, the Scottish multi-instrumentalist and producer chiefly recognized through his roles in Erland & the Carnival and Magnetic North, has assembled a body of recordings that merges psychedelic folk, field recordings, contemporary electronic music, and alternative rock with contemporary classical reworkings of traditional folk material and scores for film and television. His first solo album, Solan Goose, arrived in 2018 as the opening release in an ecology-themed trilogy rooted in memories of his Orkney childhood; Sule Skerry followed in 2019 and Hether Blether completed the sequence in 2020.
Raised in the Orkney Islands, Cooper absorbed the music of traditional folk artists such as Davy Graham and Bert Jansch before leaving to travel and eventually settling in London. There he met Simon Tong (the Verve, the Good, the Bad & the Queen) at a folk club, where their mutual enthusiasm for English and Scottish traditional music led to a songwriting partnership. Joined by electronic multi-instrumentalist David Nock, the pair issued their self-titled debut as Erland & the Carnival in 2010, followed by Nightingale in 2011 and Closing Time in 2014. Cooper and Tong simultaneously developed the Magnetic North project alongside vocalist and composer Hannah Peel; the resulting Orkney: Symphony of the Magnetic North, which Cooper composed around the landscapes, inhabitants, and lore of his native islands, appeared in 2012, while Prospect of Skelmersdale, inspired by Tong’s childhood town, followed in 2016.
In 2018 Cooper stepped forward independently with Solan Goose, the first of three albums that drew fresh inspiration from the Orkney setting. Each track bore the name of a local bird, and the music ranged from spare piano statements to richly orchestrated contemporary classical passages. That year he also collaborated with William Doyle on the similarly bird-themed album Murmuration. The second installment of the trilogy, Sule Skerry, emerged in 2019, further emphasizing contemporary classical textures and featuring composer and violinist Anna Phoebe, Scottish singer/songwriter Kathryn Joseph, and British folk artist Kris Drever. Cooper concluded the series in 2020 with the release of the immersive and heartfelt Hether Blether.
