Grounded (2024)

A sound swells, seizes the pulse, and grows in intensity. A voice settles over the treetops of this sound like morning mist, rising into luminous heights. Out of its fading emerge new, shifting ornaments, like clouds in a blue sky. A string orchestra, the wordless voice of singer Teresa Bergman, the gentle piano of Mayuko Miyata, and numerous subtly deployed synths and electronics interweave into a whole that is far more than the sum of its parts.

Grounded opens a door. Beyond it stretches a safe space offering refuge in restless times. One can stretch out in this music, switch off the mind, and simply let it unfold all around. It is not only on his new album Grounded that Berlin composer Kerim König proves himself a master of the exceedingly rare art of psychoacoustics. This time, his challenge was to free the listening, feeling ear from every other demand. As an experienced film composer, he is well versed in translating moving images into sound. On Grounded, however, the process works in exactly the opposite direction: the music generates its own images, creating new plots within the listener’s imagination.

Grounded is König’s first work with a string orchestra. All of the other contributors belong to a close circle of musicians with whom the Berlin-based composer has worked in trust for many years. This continuity means a great deal to him, because even though each release leads him into new terrain, from album to album he continues along a ridgeline path that has evolved into a deliberate journey of refinement, while also solidifying a musical vocabulary first begun nearly ten years ago. On Grounded, he reaches a singular level of distinctiveness, creating a reference system entirely his own. With what is arguably his opus magnum to date, Kerim König achieves nothing less than the paradox of fierce solace.

The EP was released on October 11th, 2024 via Hey!Classics by Hey!blau Records.