Artists
Album Info
Release Date: 2021-12-03Label: Flaming Pines
Named for a rare earth metal used for rose-tinted glasses, erbium puts a decidedly positive slant on its context. Tonkyn Pearson are New Zealand-based musicians Shanan Holm and Michael Upton, and for this album they embraced the aural advantages of their country's Level 4 lockdown to produce an album which meditates on the quiet, the still and the absent. From city streets without traffic, to a rural shed, an empty house, a thunderstorm and a lone bicycle, Holm and Upton explore the possibilities within the stillness of an everyday turned upside down. Through this focus on the new quietness of the pandemic, the pair found themselves drawn to unadorned instruments, embracing acoustic sources from Oscar Holm’s clarinet on Gravity Latch to piano and acoustic guitar. One of the few nations which was able to contain the coronavirus for long periods, New Zealand/Aotearoa experienced a very different pandemic to much of the world. This album bears testament to this unique vantage point, using its four longform pieces to build in our ears the possibilities contained within a world slowed down, a world full of spaces for contemplation and stillness.---------------------
Tonkyn Pearson are Shanan Holm and Michael Upton. They previously released under the name Montano.
All tracks by Shanan Holm and Michael Upton.
Mastered by Nima Aghiani
Art by Kate Carr
released December 3, 2021