Emil Friis releases Hollow Hands today (July 17th), a four-track EP via 130701, FatCat’s modern classical imprint. The Danish composer and pianist wrote and recorded it mostly in his Copenhagen studio through the autumn of 2025, and it follows his 2025 album Moving Images, also on 130701. Opening track Hands, Hollowed arrives with a short film directed by Kevin Brooks.
Brooks made a film for For Goodbyes as part of the wider Moving Images visual project, reflecting on faith, doubt and the fragility of human relationships. A line from it — “An empty prayer. A hollow hand.” — gave this EP its title and its emotional foundation.
“I’m drawn to things that are inherently human,” Friis says. “Emotions that spring from us or are informed by us. What it means to have agency, or free will if you like. The urge to do something not because you have to, but because you can’t help yourself.”
Friis reshapes the sound of the piano itself here. He recorded it through Extinct Audio ribbon microphones, a vintage U47 and additional FET mics, then processed it through Moog filters and a Wellspring reverb unit. Hands, Hollowed grew from a chord progression that lingered in his mind across the summer, and a partially obscured melody sits under the reverb haze. “It was important to me to try and create something that is the polar opposite of much of what goes on around us,” he says. “The loss of self-determination that many feel in this age of screens.”
The second track, Some Fine Afternoon, is built around field recordings Friis captured in southern Italy, improvised over at the piano, while Hands, Remembered takes the opening piece apart, stripping back melodic structure and letting harmony and atmosphere carry it. Closer As Sun I Meet You Now starts on a pulsating repeated piano note, then turns midway on Yamaha DX21 textures fed through Moog effects before a final expansive climax on piano.
Hollow Hands (17th July 2026) 130701 / FatCat Records
Bandcamp: https://emilfriis.bandcamp.com/album/hollow-hands-ep
More: https://130701.lnk.to/emil-friis