Erland Cooper – Sule Skerry (Phases)

The middle part of Erland Cooper’s proposed triptych inspired by the Orkney Islands is a modern classical evocation of mythology, wonder and wildlife

The harbour – once the bright and bustling place of my childhood – has been emptied out. A few boats still, their paint faded and cracking, sit like abandoned wooden toys. Along the shore the story is the same, if not worse. Boarded up hotels, pubs and shops. This display of detritus from my past was difficult to witness. On a particular trip back home to Macduff in the north east of Scotland I was indeed struck by how much it had changed. Not being present to experience the passage of time meant, for me, that it simply was and then it wasn’t.

Although Erland Cooper hails from the Orkney Islands – significantly further north than myself – there is something in the water that I relate to. Sule Skerry is the middle entry of a proposed triptych inspired by Cooper’s childhood home (the first part being Solan Goose). It may also be viewed as the third remarkable album by a Scottish artist in 2019 concerned with the water, following on from Andrew Wasylyk’s The Paralian and Kinbrae’s Landforms.

If listening to Sule Skerry brought up visions of a now-dilapidated fishing town where I grew up, that’s not to say that’s where its narrative impulses lie. However, hearing field recordings of locals in not-too-dissimilar accents to the voices of my childhood, sensing the primal forces of the sea surging around me in sonic waves and experiencing the melancholy pull of Cooper’s multi-instrumentalist compositions, well, it’s no surprise that it triggered something along those lines. Sule Skerry feels closer to nature, more in tune with wildlife and myth. If Macduff represents an outpost of humankind attempting to harness the sea to an unsustainable extent, then perhaps a vision of the town being absorbed once more by nature – slowly, over years – is an appropriate one.

Piano, strings and soprano signal the beginning of Cooper’s explorations on “Haar”, a modern classical score to a nature documentary shot in the deep past. “First of the Tide” utilises a gently insistent looped undercurrent with shades of the Trunk-Records-released Cults Percussion Ensemble (featuring Evelyn Glennie when she was a schoolgirl), with Cooper’s voice shaping its course. Meanwhile, “Spoot Ebb” is a percussive wonder, the Selkie’s song made manifest in the modern world – it’s odd and insistent and would be the perfect anthem for a Scottish new wave cinema.

The voices of mythology and miniature music box mechanics of “Flattie” begins with Kris Dreaver and concludes with the magnificent Kathryn Joseph reading specially commissioned poetry by Will Burns. “The sea will pull us towards the peace that drifts beyond its rage” – the words burrowing underneath and coursing through the listeners’ veins, bringing errant children of the sea back home. I somehow cannot help but imagine Kathryn Joseph momentarily embodying Alan Warner’s Morvern Callar as she steps across into another story. Indeed Sule Skerry features a number of collaborations, each of them perfectly judged and subtly implemented. Cooper never allows his distinctive voice to be overwhelmed and the album is only richer for the contributions. How he wraps field recordings into his sonic textures even recalls Boards of Canada, bringing a sense of place and a certain mood of times gone but alive.

“Lump O’Sea” is the power of the tide expressed through insistent piano and strings that surge. It’s Max Richter circa-“November” with an invisible Mogwai engine; Orkney at the very edge of the world and a beautiful void opening up over that edge. The fisherman’s voice at the end tugs matters back down to earth, signalling that we live in this world alongside wonders and forces beyond our ken. Astra Forward lends her voice to the title track which closes proceedings over a magical seven minutes. It becomes the ocean’s equivalent and reversal of a torch song, a piece in absolute sync with the water. Here Cooper embodies the sweeping and surging cyclical nature of the ocean through an ambient classical epic that gets distinctly personal. “I’ll wait, wait ‘til I’m old / The wait is cold, the water’s frozen”, sings Forward and it makes one feel quite the opposite of cold. “Sule Skerry” is a song to delve into over repeat listens. I heard my daughter singing along to it in the other room whilst writing this review, so I’m pleased to confirm that Erland Cooper has got under the skin of our household and brought his visions of Orkney to life in our pocket of London.