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N Kramer & Magnus Bang Olsen
Pastoral Blend
Music From Memory - Cat No: MFM077
- Release: 2025-07-04
- updated:2026-08-03
Wonderful music is emerging from 〈Music From Memory〉. This is a collaboration between N Kramer—best known for J Foerster / N Kramer’s “Habitat II,” one of 〈Leaving Records〉’s most acclaimed albums—and Magnus Bang Olsen of The Zenmenn. Slow music.
Track List
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a1. Descend
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a2. Limbic Fresco
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a3. Pastoral Blend
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a4. Weathered
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a5. Orb
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b1. Grasslands
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b2. Agrarian Dawn
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b3. Harvest
>> 16bit/44.1khz [wav/flac/aiff/alac/mp3]
New album from the duo of N Kramer and Magnus Bang Olsen (The Zenmenn).
Recorded in Berlin between August 2023 and March 2024, ‘Pastoral Blend’ combines Kramer's improvisational process and mastery of contemporary production techniques with Bang Olsen’s emotive pedal steel guitar playing. The creative process was anchored in capturing various phrases and patterns from the instrument, which were then reshaped, reversed, and layered intricately. This meticulous approach allowed a foundational track to emerge, upon which further arrangements and developments were sculpted. This process, which builds on Kramer's earlier work as Habitat (with J. Foerster, released on Leaving Records), gives the music a gentle asynchronous flow that feels uniquely live and organic.
Merging the warmth and intimacy of instrumental Americana with the glitchy, textural processing reminiscent of early 2000s Max/MSP and influential artists such as Fennesz and Alva Noto, ‘Pastoral Blend’ is a textured drift between analog warmth and digital fragmentation, a delicate equilibrium that duo navigate with remarkable finesse and an air of effortless charm. With titles like ‘Harvest', ‘Agrarian Dawn’, ‘Grasslands’, and ‘Weathered’, Kramer and Bang Olsen evoke a musical vocabulary steeped in themes of landscape, memory, and tradition; a vocabulary that gently alludes to the more familiar and traditional musical structures lying beneath the rich layers of sound. Herein lies the essence of the 'Pastoral Blend’.
Sleeve art and design by Michael Willis.
Recorded in Berlin between August 2023 and March 2024, ‘Pastoral Blend’ combines Kramer's improvisational process and mastery of contemporary production techniques with Bang Olsen’s emotive pedal steel guitar playing. The creative process was anchored in capturing various phrases and patterns from the instrument, which were then reshaped, reversed, and layered intricately. This meticulous approach allowed a foundational track to emerge, upon which further arrangements and developments were sculpted. This process, which builds on Kramer's earlier work as Habitat (with J. Foerster, released on Leaving Records), gives the music a gentle asynchronous flow that feels uniquely live and organic.
Merging the warmth and intimacy of instrumental Americana with the glitchy, textural processing reminiscent of early 2000s Max/MSP and influential artists such as Fennesz and Alva Noto, ‘Pastoral Blend’ is a textured drift between analog warmth and digital fragmentation, a delicate equilibrium that duo navigate with remarkable finesse and an air of effortless charm. With titles like ‘Harvest', ‘Agrarian Dawn’, ‘Grasslands’, and ‘Weathered’, Kramer and Bang Olsen evoke a musical vocabulary steeped in themes of landscape, memory, and tradition; a vocabulary that gently alludes to the more familiar and traditional musical structures lying beneath the rich layers of sound. Herein lies the essence of the 'Pastoral Blend’.
Sleeve art and design by Michael Willis.
Featuring the duo pedal steel guitar of Magnus Bang Olsen of The Zenmenn—who has left a wonderful body of work on *Music From Memory*—and Niklas Kramer from Berlin, known for his collaborations with J Foerster and others, this album is built on a sound process that combines glitches, and other digital processing, combined with analog textures like reverse playback—resulting in evocative, warm music. Please enjoy it along with the title and artwork, which also carry the meaning of “Pastoral Blend.” (Original Japanese text by Saito)