Mechanical Piano

The invention of Benjamin Mørks’ sound and playing-style, Mechanical Piano, is a direct consequence of him buying a beat-up old grand piano that was spray-painted blue, and that had generally seen some really heavy use. Instead of trying to make it sound like a modern concert grand he removed all the unnecessary parts and discovered there were lots of mechanical sounds inside the instrument. Through a system of homemade microphones we can now isolate and amplify the mechanical sounds from the release of the keys and the pressing/lifting of pedals, which in turn forces us to incorporate them as rythmical elements of the music. Mørk has, as a first, quantised the use of these sounds and coined the term - Mechanical Piano. This is a special kind of minimalistic piano music, combined with electronics. Benjamin Mørk is from the island Senja in the northern part of Norway. His musical infuences range from Esbjørn Svenson , Ryuichi Sakamoto and Sergej Rachmaninov to Nils Petter Molvær, Jon Hopkins and Bicep. Out on Jazzland Recordings.