~This Elegant Chaos~#3: Ödland

Aahh....now for something a little different!

You may think that we here at Streetlamp HQ like nothing more than the chiming Rickenbacker, the acoustic strum, and the winsome heartbroken vocal(and you'd be correct), but what we also like is musical collectives that create their own little worlds....worlds that are unique, worlds that are aesthetic, worlds that are always beautiful. Welcome, then, to the world of Ödland....
Imagine the works of M.R. James, Lewis Carroll and Heinrich Hoffmann as visualised by David Lynch or Jan Svankmajer and then scored by Gabriel Yared or Erik Satie and that may give you some kind of insight to the music of Ödland. Their music is cinematicaly visual and deeply literary that I find it difficult to try and explain it within the context of Pop or even popular music. Ödland's music creates feelings of dreams and fairytales, especially those weird and unsettling fairytales full of Struwwelpeters, Juniper Trees and Little Mooks. Nursery rhymes and the works of Lewis Carroll also feature heavily as influences but this is not music for children.

Ödland, The Queen of Hearts. from Lorenzo Papace on Vimeo

Let Ödland introduce themselves in their own inimitable style:
"Dear friends, we are Ödland. We love wind and violin, clouds and piano. We have to dream or the way may be lost. We were born in a train and we are traveling with ghosts. Our shadow will reappear, because the past is lighting us. Dear friends, welcome to our Land".

Ödland was founded by classically trained pianist Lorenzo Papace in Lyon, France. Lorenzo had worked on some short movies with actress Alizée Bingöllü, so when he started Ödland he called up her to provide the vocals. They were then joined by Léa Bingöllü on violin and Isabelle Royet-Journoud(a photographer) who created the visual stylings of the project and also adds sound affects to the music. On their most recent release, the album 'Ottocento', they were joined by Alice Tahon who played violoncello.

Ödland, The Caterpillar. from Lorenzo Papace on Vimeo.

Here again is how the collective describe themselves:
“Dear friends. We are Ödland. We hope you will like our music. There will be perhaps squeakings of teeth and some lovers among you. We are inspired by the 19th Century and what you could listen at this time. But we keep a modern spirit and we are not slaves of a particular style. Our concern is above all to meet you with shows, because our music is entirely acoustic. We hope to travel as much as possible. Take care of you. Regards.”

So far the 'band' have released on E.P., the glorious 'The Caterpillar' which was never off my MP3 player on my recent holiday, and their debut album 'Ottocento'. Both are available from Ödland's beautiful and highly individualistic website here.
Both records are ESSENTIAL purchases.
They also have a Myspace page, and a page at Last.fm where you can hear their tracks before you purchase them.

Ödland are without doubt one of my most treasured discoveries of recent times.

Welcome to Ödland....we think you'll like it here!

~Gordon~

Ödland, The well. from Lorenzo Papace on Vimeo.