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CMU Approved
Approved: Pêtr Aleksänder
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 24 March 2020
Noah & The Whale’s Tom Hobden and producer Eliot James have been releasing modern classical compositions together as Pêtr Aleksänder since 2017. Following their debut album last year, ‘Closer, Still’, they return now with new single ‘The Something Else’ – a deceptively simple track that grabs at your heart just when you think you’ve comfortably settled into it.
“‘The Something Else’ is an instrumental arrangement for piano and strings built around sixteen repeating notes which were originally inspired by Pachelbel’s Canon”, says Eliot.
He goes on: “Our sixteen notes provide the backbone for a sweeping string arrangement which ebbs and flows around the central theme, accompanied by some slices of vocals and electronics which allude to the wider theme of our EP. It’s a piece of music we have been playing and experimenting with live and became a natural starting point for the new wave of music we have been working on recently”.
It’s not actually the duo’s first new release this year or even this month. Recently they announced their classical interpretation of Ride’s ‘This Is Not A Safe Place’ album. Their version of the record was created at the same time the band were in the studio, using only the vocal tracks. So, unlike most albums of this type, they only heard the ‘original’ versions of the songs after they’d completed their own.
The Ride reinterpretation is set for release on 1 May, while their own new EP, ‘Another World’ – from which ‘The Something Else’ is taken – is out on 20 May. Watch the video for ‘The Something Else’ here:
