SVT138 Hamlet I Piano - CD

Just in time for autumn, Fran invites us into club music’s parallel world with the project Hamlet: aided by Oded K.dar (NÖRD / The Koletzkis) on the piano, she presents cover versions of beloved electronic classics such as ‘Sky and Sand’, ‘Limit to your Love’, ‘Howling’ or ‘Hypnotized’ on the fittingly titled album ‘Piano’. The initial idea came to the duo at a birthday party; the first baby steps followed the very next day. Surprised by the potential, the autodidactic singer Fran and the studied concert pianist Oded searched far and wide for the perfect grand piano, which they eventually found in the form of an old Steinway at the Greve Studio in Berlin. Thus, the drunken whim developed into fourteen beautiful covers over the course of numerous nightly recording sessions. Reduced to vocals and piano, Hamlet let the original track’s essence resound. One is able to hear the soul of the song, as the minimalistic rendition enables breathing space. Moderat’s ‘Bad Kingdom’ or Kraftwerk’s ‘Das Modell’ suddenly appear like honest black and white portraits. The words and melodies, embedded in the harmonies of the piano, are like the wrinkles and peculiarities of a face stripped of make-up, emerging in a hitherto unseen fashion. A new aesthetic is created through the reduction. Removed from the club, the songs on ‘Piano’ are defined by their pure emotiveness – sometimes of a euphoric, sometimes of a melancholic nature – while they are also a nostalgic bridge to their original context. They seem like a vague memory of a late night; like the walk home in the quiet hour before dawn.