It’s not often I get to write about music coming from an artist who comes from the same country as I do, but today is the day. An upcoming album from Tuulikki Bartosik landed in my inbox over the night, and it’s exciting news for everyone who loves experimental music full of vibrant imagery and sounds that you can almost feel. This is “Playscapes”.
“A musician’s life becomes a patchwork of places and fleeting connections” became the basis of Tuulikki Bartosik’s third full-length release, which sees the artist moving through a number of places from Estonia all the way to Japan. The song titles carry hints to the particular places they keep within, and the album as a whole is a delicate work of experimental electronica driven by free-bass accordion, vocals, kantele, and a slew of electronic instruments, such as Omnichord.
Hints of Estonia, Sweden, Finland, England, and Japan run through the record, as each song builds a sonic atmosphere fitting the specific location and the memories connected with that place. There is a total of 12 songs on “Playscapes” and the whole journey takes roughly 39 minutes, the time frame full of enchanting and quite minimal soundscapes reminiscent of Olafur Arnalds. Tuulikki Bartosik is a renowned accordionist always on the course on finding new ways to incorporate the instrument into music. The unmistakable warm sound of the accordion has snugly fit itself into the delicate music so well that it starts to make me wonder “how the hell did she do that?”
Apparently, I’m not the only one to ask that question. : )
“Playscapes offers something for everyone: you can listen to it when you’re in a sad or happy mood, when you want to wander somewhere on new paths of thought or to clarify something old and familiar within yourself. This music can be listened to as a background to other activities, or attentively and focused just for the sake of listening, some of the tunes are quite dancable too, depending on your mood.
Tuulikki Bartosik
I always find something new in Playscapes for myself and often start thinking, wait, how did we do it and why does it sound like that. This is literally my playscape in music with all the different instruments and my voice used together and through with electronics. A Nordic innovative electroacoustic breeze.”
Tuulikki Bartosik is an adventurous Swedish-Estonian artist with her heart firmly in sonic explorations. The virtuous accordionist has degrees in classical and traditional music, and she also used to be a heavy metal fan in her teenage years. Speaking of which, in search of creating sounds not usually attributed to accordion for the new record, Tuulikki was inspired by beats and the low bass present in death metal. The secret to achieving that new territory of sound was by using pedals with the accordion, opening up a whole new rich sound palette like a true explorer of sound.
“Playscapes” is set to release on January 21st. Also, make sure to check out her Bandcamp page as well, as this release comes in a beautiful milky white vinyl format, which is already available for preorder.
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Don’t forget to support this project and follow on Instagram, Facebook, SoundCloud, YouTube, Apple Music, and Spotify. You can also check out her official website. If you enjoy her music and are able to provide monetary support, you might consider downloading it on Bandcamp.
It also helps to stream and share this music; you can obviously find it in the following Playlists: Fresh Singles, Indie Only, Female Rising Stars, 12 New Songs This Week, Chill – Folk – Acoustic, Sickest & Dopest, Unknown but Essentials!, Track Of The Day, and Take It Easy.
P.S. If you enjoy discovering new artists and fresh new music you can subscribe to this blog Less Than 1,000 Followers and follow the Playlist with all the artists that we have presented here!!!
This coverage was created via MusoSoup #Sustainablecurator
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