Yann Tiersen Announces 'Kerber Complete' Box Set & Shares 'Ker Al Loch (Four Ways)'

YANN TIERSEN has announced details of Kerber Complete, a box set that collates four very different versions of his 2021 album, Kerber, due for release on September 15, 2023 on CD and digitally via Mute.

Listen to “Ker al Loch (Four Ways)”, which shows the journey the track has taken through sampling and modular synthesis, solo piano, recomposition and being remixed (here by Terence Fixmer).

The news comes alongside the first details of a unique summer tour that Tiersen is embarking on with QUINQUIS, aka Emilie Tiersen who recently released SEIM, an album that merges sparse electronics, immersive atmospherics with quietly soaring Breton language vocals. The two artists will depart from their home on the Ushant, an island off the Breton coast, to set sail for a tour of Celtic lands and the Faroe Islands.

With a series of performances already confirmed, Tiersen and QUINQUIS will be traveling on their sailboat, Ninnog, named after a medieval mother superior who traveled from Wales to Brittany, becoming a protector of women and a champion of sustainability and forestry, to a series of performances in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England and the Faroe Islands.

The tour is intended as a direct political statement on the ecological impact of large-scale touring, inviting us to examine established methods of touring and performance. With several shows already booked in June, July, August and September, taking in Cork, Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh and Bangor as well as Liverpool and the Faroe Islands, the artists have invited communities to suggest places for them to perform along the route – churches, communes, pubs, squats, beaches and gardens – with the aim of offering an alternative way to experience performance for both the audience and the artists.

Kerber Complete will collate Kerber, Yann Tiersen’s 2021 album built on modular synthesis and sampling, 11 5 18 2 5 18, the modular recomposition of Kerber, a brand new solo piano recording of Kerber and an album of remixes and reworkings from the likes of Terence Fixmer, Beatrice Dillon and Laurel Halo, as well as remixes by Tiersen of NEU!, Keeley Forsyth, Michael Price and Simon Fisher Turner & Edmund de Waal.

While 2021’s Kerber saw Tiersen incorporating modular synthesis and sampling into the recording process, his follow up album, 11 5 18 2 5 18, was born from further experimentation in the studio as the artist prepared for a performance at Berlin’s modular and synthesizer festival, Superbooth.

Using samples as his source, Tiersen resampled, reprogrammed and recomposed existing audio to create entirely new tracks unrecognizable and decontextualized from their original versions. Kerber Complete brings the story full circle as he compliments the two albums with remixes from across Kerber and an album of newly recorded piano versions of the tracks, piano being the original source of the samples for Kerber.

Today Yann Tiersen will also present Live in Passengers – ARTE Concert, performing live at Berlin’s former Tempelhof airport, now a public park.

TOUR DATES:

6/16/2023 Cork, Connolly’s of Leap (Yann Tiersen)

6/18/2023 – Cork, Live at St Luke’s (Yann Tiersen)

6/24/2023 – Dublin, Whelans (Yann Tiersen)

6/29/2023 - Belfast, Empire (Yann Tiersen)

7/15/2023 - Faroe Islands, G Fest (Yann Tiersen & QUINQUIS)

8/8/2023 – Edinburgh, Liquid Room (Yann Tiersen)

8/22/2023 – Liverpool, 24 Kitchen St (Yann Tiersen)

8/25/2023 – Wales, Ara Deg (Yann Tiersen)

8/26/2023 – Wales, Ara Deg (QUINQUIS) 

Photo credit: Richard Drumas

To post a comment, you must register and login.