Aphrilis, by Lau Nau

Aphrilis

by Lau Nau

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eszimeszi Nature would fall in love with humanity after listening these songs. Favorite track: Planeetta.

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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
140g black vinyl edition. Includes a 2-sided, full color inner sleeve with the original Finnish lyrics as well as an English translation.

Cover art by Pauliina Mäkelä.

Includes unlimited streaming of Aphrilis via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

$8 USD or more
Cloudburst Vinyl LP
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Limited copies on 140g Cloudburst vinyl. Includes a 2-sided, full color inner sleeve with the original Finnish lyrics as well as an English translation.

Cover art by Pauliina Mäkelä.

Includes unlimited streaming of Aphrilis via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.	April 07:38	buy track
2.	Kielet on viritetty tuuleen 03:39	buy track
3.	Nukahtamislaulu 06:43	buy track
4.	Simona 04:18	buy track
5.	Planeetta 06:51	buy track
6.	Paratiisin kukkivat puut 02:47	buy track
7.	Seitsemäs taivas 07:04	buy track

about

The title of the Lau Nau's 10th album, Aphrilis, derives from the Latin word aperire, meaning "to open." A fitting verb for the month of the year it is closely associated with — April. And while the images of plants and blossoms coming back to colorful life after a long, cold winter feels appropriate when listening to the rich and lustrous bloom of music on Aphrilis, another definition of open feels even more apt. For under the abundance lies the memory of times of austerity, the friction of hard choices, the acceptance that nothing is fixed and the future is unknown. This literal and metaphorical exploration of complexity and contradiction makes Aphrilis a multi-dimensional antidote for our troubled times, one that emphasizes the quiet and communal over noise and spectacle.

Laura Naukkarinen, the Finnish artist behind this project, has long kept her mind and spirit open to whatever sounds and creative ideas felt appropriate for the moment. For the past six years that has meant primarily working with modular synthesis — learning how to build modules and releasing acclaimed work centered on its sounds like 5x4 (2023) or Puutarhassa (2022). Running parallel to this work, however, has been a continued exploration of acoustic instruments and group performances with her trio Lau Nau ja Seitsemäs Taivas.

Aphrilis arrives then like fresh growth in a creative season cycle. A companion to her brilliant 2017 release Poseidon, the album, says Naukkarinen, "felt like a needed moment to embrace songs with lyrics again." And through the creation of this work, she remained open not only to her own creative muse, but also the input of her chosen collaborators. Each player on Aphrilis — Matti Bye on celesta and synths, Pekko Käppi on jouhikko, Hermanni Yli-Tepsa on violin and contrabass, Topias Tiheäsalo on electric guitar, Samuli Kosminen (Múm) on various instruments — was given free reign to arrange their own parts to accompany Naukkarinen's compositions. Kosminen’s lush fingerprint can also be heard in the mixing and production of the album, as with Poseidon six years ago. The moniker of this project may be taken from Naukkarinen’s own name, but Lau Nau feels more like a band than ever before.

The delicacy and softness of the music is reflected in Naukkarinen’s lyrics. Each song is rife with imagery and creatures from the natural world. The spiders in the forest. The animals that keep a young woman company in her refuge in the woods. Wet grass. The feeling of the music is almost tactile, as if listening to the album will leave a bit of dew or sap on your fingers. The theme of this material, says Naukkarinen, runs even deeper. “The songs tell about cracks and changes of direction in different histories: personal, societal, planetary,” she says. “About moments when a yes can become a no and vice versa. The album wants to propose that at the moment of a crisis there is a possibility to influence the histories by our choices.” That may feel like a lot for such a fragile sounding collection of songs to bear. But Aphrilis is an album of surprising strength and resilience.

credits

released November 10, 2023

"Laura Naukkarinen is one of the greatest composers of the last 20 years." – Foxy Digitalis

"Lau Nau's 10th album arrives shortly after the stunning '5x4', but is a markedly different proposal – a full band project made alongside Múm's Samuli Kosminen. Unashamedly pretty and lushly orchestrated, it's a selection of fragile Finnish folk-pop that'll melt your heart." – Boomkat

"With 'Aphrilis', Lau Nau returns to a meditation on time and place (something her past field recordings have captured so well) through mostly acoustic instrumentation...The belief in hope lingers, the brightness reshaped into an iterative composition that finally yields to something colder but never foreboding." – Dusted

Played, arranged and recorded by Laura Naukkarinen, Samuli Kosminen, Pekko Käppi, Hermanni Yli-Tepsa, Matti Bye, Topias Tiheäsalo 2019 - 2022
Composed by Laura Naukkarinen
Paratiisin kukkivat puut composed with Samuli Kosminen
Mixed by Samuli Kosminen / Ulappa
Produced by Samuli Kosminen and Laura Naukkarinen
Mastered by Jaakko Viitalähde / Virtalähde Mastering
Cover art by Pauliina Mäkelä
Layout by Andrew Neerman

Thank you for support Taike - Finnish Art council, Samuel Huber foundation

Co-released by Beacon Sound and Fonal

Artist bio:
Lau Nau, aka Laura Naukkarinen, is a Finnish composer whose music is imbued with an idiosyncratic, finely honed sound world. Her palette consists of acoustic instruments, singing voice, modular synthesisers, reel-to-reel tape recorders and field recordings. To date Lau Nau has released ten albums on record labels in Europe, the USA and Japan and a large number of collaborative releases. 2023 sees two releases by her on Beacon Sound and Fonal: Aphrilis and 5 x 4, which was composed for Buchla 200 synthesizer and was lauded by Boomkat as a "stunning album of dreamwoven Buchla soundscapes and ethereal vocals". Lau Nau is known for her music to films and multi channel sound installations. She was awarded the Finnish State Prize for the Performing Arts 2021 as a sound designer. She has toured abroad for over 20 years, playing in venues such as Super Deluxe in Tokyo, the Lab & Castro Theatre in San Francisco and Blank Forms & Issue Project Room in New York.

Aphrilis etymology:
The Romans gave this month the Latin name Aprilis[1] but the derivation of this name is uncertain. The traditional etymology is from the verb aperire, "to open", in allusion to its being the season when trees and flowers begin to "open", which is supported by comparison with the modern Greek use of άνοιξη (ánixi) (opening) for spring. Since some of the Roman months were named in honor of divinities, and as April was sacred to the goddess Venus, her Veneralia being held on the first day, it has been suggested that Aprilis was originally her month Aphrilis, from her equivalent Greek goddess name Aphrodite (Aphros), or from the Etruscan name Apru.
(Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April)

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