praam

between two poles is the fourth album Nanne Praamstra releases under his moniker praam. It’s the most recent footnote in a gorgeous, rapidly snowballing body of work, in which the Utrecht-based musician and composer emerges as an extremely productive artist guided by his own imagination and gut feeling.

 

His debut LP sentience rings true, as its title meditates on 'the capacity to feel rather than to think''. Successors perceptionism and luminance – released through American label Sonder House and Swedish label 1631 Recordings – amassed more than 10 million streams worldwide in just a single year.

 

On between two poles – which is released on September 23 – praam tells stories that take place on our planet. “It talks about the silent voices. Society is drowned out by the loudest voices; and the people with the loudest voices are often very black or white, right or left, for or against in their train of thought. Also known as polarization. But between those poles lies the real world with the real experiences, characters, nature, and feelings. A world in which nuance speaks loudest.”

 

Each track is effectively a scene on the stage we call 'earth', between the two poles. There is one scene taking place in a nature film with dense forest (‘infinite green’), a scene in which two (or all) people meet (‘our paths crossing’), a scene of a busy market in India (‘pune’), a scene of the world that comes to life (‘morgen’) or the flashback to the past, the insight that you are connected to everything (‘að muna’).

 

On 'pune' and 'motives', praam sought collaboration with Dutch jazz musician Eric Vloeimans. “Eric is the biggest Dutch name in the trumpet world, so I wasn't sure if he would have time for this project or if he wanted it at all. But luckily we soon found each other within the album’s concept and recorded several songs together.”

 

Before he made headway within neoclassical circles, Praamstra traveled many paths, experiences that all find a place in his tranquil compositions. His first love was not even piano, but drums, with which he has supported many projects and bands as a session musician. The switch to piano symbolizes a personal quest for him, after years of playing in the service of others. “When I heard that my wife was expecting my first daughter, the first thing I did was walk to the piano. To turn my emotion into music. And a new sound came out, in which I could translate myself and my feelings very directly into (instrumental) compositions. Parenting meant that I had less and less time to coordinate schedules with others, so I started a project that I could do all by myself.”

 

Now that Praamstra realizes that people all over the world listen to his music, it was time to write an album that explores and embraces this vast world more deeply: between two poles is the pinnacle of that pursuit. Praamstra: “It’s been a special journey, in which I play both the loudest and the softest instrument. I have learned that I can pioneer by allowing instrumental music to tell stories. Very specifically, by allowing different instruments and different disciplines to speak in the same language.”