The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Unearthed album begins tour
An album which had every trace of its existence deleted other than the original tape – which was buried on a Scottish island – is set to tour the country after being found by two determined music fans.
Erland Cooper hid the only copy of his upcoming album, Carve The Runes Then Be Content With Silence, in Orkney in the spring of 2021 – deleting all digital files and leaving only a treasure hunt of clues for fans and his record label alike.
It remained underground until Victoria and Dan Rhodes, from Kirkwall, finally solved the mystery and unearthed the recording in Stromness last autumn.
While the quarter-inch magnetic tape remained buried, along with a violin, a printed score, a biscuit box with a letter and a special carved rune stone, the musician released clues on its whereabouts during each equinox and solstice.
He vowed that if nobody found the tape, he would dig it up himself and release the music in 2024, no matter how altered the recording was.
But after being unearthed by the couple, the album will begin a tour of the country’s record shops before arriving at the Barbican, in London, on June 8 next year.
There, the album will be played for the first time.
Cooper, whose music is inspired by the history and landscape of Orkney, said his latest album was a “meditation on value, patience and time, as well as the often-disposable nature of music”.
He added: “It seems fitting to me that the tape will slowly return and dry out between Orkney and London, in those safe havens of record shops that bring value to mine and my peers’ work.
“People can see the tape with all its artefacts – the stone, the score, the violin – but not yet hear it until 2024, as planned.
“This honours all the virtues of the project.
“It feels like there is value in having to wait just a little bit longer for this one copy to be heard. From darkness to light and the kindness of strangers who found it.”
The tape will begin its tour at the most northern record shop in the UK, Orkney’s Grooves Records, before it heads to Assai in Dundee, Monorail in Glasgow and Assai in Edinburgh.