about the record

Recorded in Berlin between August 2023 and March 2024, Pastoral Blend combines N Kramer's improvisational process and mastery of contemporary production techniques with Magnus 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 N Kramer's earlier work on 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 the duo navigate with remarkable finesse and an air of effortless charm.

With titles like “Harvest”, “Agrarian Dawn”, “Grasslands”, and “Weathered”, N Kramer and Magnus Bang Olsen evoke a musical vocabulary steeped in themes of landscape, memory, and tradition. It is a vocabulary that gently alludes to the more familiar and traditional musical structures lying beneath the rich layers of sound.