Conrad Clipper is the pseudonym of an anonymous Berlin-based composer and multi-instrumentalist, with a focus on prepared, programmed & played piano. Following the release of his debut album Cycle of Liminal Rites on Emily Elhaj’s Love Lion label (Angel Olsen), he is now set to release his follow-up release – Heron’s Book of Dreams, on Luau Records (Theo Alexander, Sontag Shogun, Segal) on March 26th 2021. It was recorded in Arizona and Berlin, and was mixed and mastered by Deerhoof’s John Dieterich.
Before seeing the video for the title track below I was unaware of Arcosanti, it’s a projected experimental town with a molten bronze bell casting business in Yavapai County, central Arizona – a prototype arcology, integrating the design of architecture with respect to ecology and living frugally.
Conrad on the recording of Heron’s Book of Dreams:
“Through the window at Arcosanti, I could see the desert, vast and transformative. Inside the room was an upright piano, a Fender Rhodes, and several synths. For five days – every morning, afternoon and evening – I sat in this room with the circular window and wrote the music you can hear on this record. Outside, intimate crowds gathered to watch some of the world’s best musicians play unique and unrepeatable sets
“Arcosanti, AZ is a prototype arcology designed by Paolo Soleri. Picture, if you can, moonbase architecture inspired by late-60s sustainable ideologies. Concrete atriums screened with poplar and olive trees. Shady, calm apses to keep the desert sun off. The low roar of the iron forge, casting the famous Arcosanti bells that are shipped around the world.
“Each year, FORM festival takes place there and selects 1,000 people to attend. I was not selected. Instead, I found myself there working as a photographic assistant to my friend, Tonje. During that week, through Tonje, I met Tortoise, Bill Callahan, The National, Grizzly Bear, Moses Sumney, Perfume Genius, Braids, Skrillex, Hundred Waters and many others.
“Whenever possible, and often during their live shows, I would sneak into the room with the circular window to write and record Heron’s Book of Dreams. This record, then, is for anyone who has found themselves watching as their dreams play out on a stage without them.”
I watched this video several times over and with the offer to ask questions I began to think about its symbolism and my own response to that…the very act of formulating questions felt too distracting and removed from the wonder I felt when I first heard and saw this. Conrad’s response settled my own mind and said all I needed really needed to hear…
I’m trying to tell a story that is both deeply personal and universally opaque. I believe that the joy of music is that it allows the audience to create their own narrative, to attach meaning to sound based on their own lives and experiences. Experimental music is particularly conducive to this.
Imagine someone sitting, looking out the window at the grey-lilac clouds, the record on in the background, maybe in Osaka, or in Manchester, or in Berlin, someone walking through empty streets at nighttime, long coat drawn tightly around them, listening on headphones, lost in other thoughts, about love and taxes maybe, experiencing the quiet epiphanies of the joys of existence, being alive in their own quantum singularity with all its strings of past and future, and all the great mess that this entails.
The video and the composition share the exact same influence at source. They are both love stories. The symbolism in the video is carefully constructed to tell this narrative in an abstract / surreal manner that will be essentially meaningless to the audience, but also allowing the audience to interpret and create new meanings of their own. This is the real reason why I continue to make music, because I think this is an amazing thing.
Video by Conrad Clipper with Studio Swine, Alexandra Carr, Carlotta Castells, Christopher Lange, Marco Iozzi, Thiago Da Costa, Riccardo Gerosa and Say Goodnight Films.
Conrad Clipper – ‘Heron’s Book of Dreams’ is released April 30th 2021 – Luau Records
Bandcamp: https://conradclipper.bandcamp.com/album/herons-book-of-dreams-2021
Photo Credit: Tonje Thilesen