{"title":"Sven Wunder","description":"\u003cp\u003eSven Wunder is the artist name of Joel Danell, a Stockholm-based composer aged 39, son of Swedish jazz drummer Nils Danell. Growing up with world-renowned musicians rehearsing in his basement, Danell became an accomplished jazz musician, music producer, and composer of film and TV scores. He created the Sven Wunder project in 2018 after completing a soundtrack commission, too restless to take a planned holiday. His debut \u003cem\u003eDoğu Çiçekleri \u003c\/em\u003e(retitled \u003cem\u003eEastern Flowers\u003c\/em\u003e, 2019) was recorded with local musicians and released on his Piano Piano Records label. The limited edition vinyl rapidly became a collector's item on word of mouth alone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWunder's music stands between Anatolian rock and European jazz-funk with groovy organs, far-out synthesisers, enchanting saz, and impetuous bass lines, appealing to psych and prog listeners, folk and jazz aficionados, and hip-hop connoisseurs alike. His discography explores different regions and styles: Wabi Sabi (2020) respectfully incorporated Eastern and Southern Asian sounds with clear nods to Japanese jazz, whilst Natura Morta (2021) channelled romantic, panoramic Italian library music. Late Again (2023), a nocturnal collection of gentle piano compositions and orchestral pop-jazz arrangements for flute, brass, and strings. He has worked with Danny Brown, Madlib and Tyler the Creator. In 2024, Wunder made his stage debut at Stockholm Jazz Festival.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"sven-wunder-wabi-sabi-2020-swedish-piano-piano-vinyl-lp","title":"Sven Wunder - Wabi Sabi (2020 Swedish Piano Piano Vinyl LP)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSven Wunder - \u003cem\u003eWabi Sabi\u003c\/em\u003e | Vinyl LP - 2020 Swedish Piano Piano Records Repress (PP1002)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSven Wunder's second album\u003c\/strong\u003e, following the Anatolian-influenced debut \u003cem\u003eEastern Flowers\u003c\/em\u003e (2019): eleven instrumentals built around Japanese aesthetics, using Western concert flute to evoke the shakuhachi, guzheng (Chinese zither), Moog synthesizer, Wurlitzer electric piano and electric bass\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eOne of the standout contemporary jazz records of 2020\u003c\/strong\u003e, crossing library music, jazz-funk and East Asian folk sounds in a way that draws comparisons to Hozan Yamamoto, Dorothy Ashby, David Axelrod and Italian library music of the 1970s\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003e\"Hanami\" from this album was reworked by Detroit rapper Danny Brown\u003c\/strong\u003e on his 2023 Warp Records album \u003cem\u003eQuaranta\u003c\/em\u003e, one marker of how widely this record circulated through both jazz and hip-hop collector circles\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJoel Danell is a Stockholm-based composer of film and TV scores, son of Swedish jazz drummer Nils Danell, and the person behind the Sven Wunder project, which he runs with label partner John Henriksson on their Piano Piano Records imprint. When \u003cem\u003eWabi Sabi\u003c\/em\u003e was released in June 2020 his identity was not publicly known; the record sold through word of mouth and through the support of Mr Bongo in the UK, who had already championed the Turkish and Anatolian-influenced debut \u003cem\u003eEastern Flowers\u003c\/em\u003e (2019) and co-released 7\"s from both records. \u003cem\u003eWabi Sabi\u003c\/em\u003e extends the same methodology into Japanese aesthetics and East Asian sound: Danell uses the Western concert flute throughout to invoke the shakuhachi, the Japanese bamboo flute associated with the Edo period, alongside the guzheng (a Chinese zither with over two thousand years of history), Moog synthesizer, Wurlitzer electric piano, strings and electric bass. The reference points cited by Mr Bongo and critics include shakuhachi jazz masters Hozan Yamamoto and the koto players Tadao and Kazue Sawai, as well as Dorothy Ashby and David Axelrod for the string and harp arrangements on the more languid tracks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe eleven pieces across the two sides take their titles from Japanese concepts and natural phenomena: \u003cem\u003eyūgen\u003c\/em\u003e (a sense of profound, mysterious beauty), \u003cem\u003eshinrin-yoku\u003c\/em\u003e (forest bathing), \u003cem\u003ehanami\u003c\/em\u003e (cherry blossom viewing), \u003cem\u003ekomorebi\u003c\/em\u003e (the quality of sunlight filtering through leaves), \u003cem\u003ekachōfūgetsu\u003c\/em\u003e (the appreciation of nature through flowers, birds, wind and moon), \u003cem\u003eonsen\u003c\/em\u003e (hot spring). The framework, as the label describes it, is wabi-sabi itself: the Japanese aesthetic of imperfection, transience and incompleteness, applied here to texture, arrangement and the deliberate quality of the recording. The visual reference is Ukiyo-e, the Japanese woodblock print tradition of the Edo period. Whether you come to this from jazz, library music, crate-digging hip-hop or Japanese folk music, the record holds together as a unified statement. \"Hanami\" was reworked by Detroit rapper Danny Brown for his 2023 Warp Records album \u003cem\u003eQuaranta\u003c\/em\u003e, placing it in a different context without diminishing it in the original. This is the second edition repress on PP1002, identifiable by the Swedish Arts Council credit on the rear sleeve.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Piano Piano","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43262731911227,"sku":null,"price":75.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0630\/3203\/3339\/files\/a1825365956_10.jpg?v=1772852436"},{"product_id":"sven-wunder-eastern-flowers-2020-swedish-piano-piano-vinyl-lp","title":"Sven Wunder - Eastern Flowers (2020 Swedish Piano Piano Vinyl LP)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSven Wunder - \u003cem\u003eEastern Flowers\u003c\/em\u003e (Doğu Çiçekleri) | Vinyl LP - 2020 Swedish Piano Piano Records Repress (PP1001)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSven Wunder's debut album\u003c\/strong\u003e, originally released in 2019 in Stockholm as \u003cem\u003eDoğu Çiçekleri\u003c\/em\u003e: thirteen instrumental pieces drawing on Anatolian rock, Levantine folk music and European jazz-funk, built around the Saz, organs, synthesizers and electric bass\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe record that established Piano Piano as a label\u003c\/strong\u003e, selling out on word of mouth through a single Stockholm record shop before international represses reached wider distribution through Mr Bongo\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli class=\"whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003e\"Lotus\" was sampled by Czarface\u003c\/strong\u003e (Wu-Tang Clan's Inspectah Deck with 7L \u0026amp; Esoteric) on \"The Czarlaac Pit\" from their 2022 album \u003cem\u003eCzarmageddon\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJoel Danell is a Stockholm-based composer and double-bass player who grew up around jazz, spent his teens listening to Anatolian and Eastern European music, and built a career writing for television and film under his own name. In 2018, between soundtrack commissions, he sat down and recorded what would become \u003cem\u003eDoğu Çiçekleri\u003c\/em\u003e, a Turkish word meaning \"Eastern Flowers,\" under the alias Sven Wunder. The record was pressed in a small run and placed in a single Stockholm record shop, Record Mania, with no promotional campaign. It sold through on word of mouth. Danell and partner John Henriksson founded Piano Piano Records around it. The international repress renamed it \u003cem\u003eEastern Flowers\u003c\/em\u003e and gave it the wider reach it had already earned, distributed through Mr Bongo in the UK and Light in the Attic in the United States.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe album takes its subject from the flora of the Levantine coast and the wider eastern Mediterranean, thirteen tracks named after flowers — tulip, magnolia, lotus, hibiscus, chamomile, the Gilboa Iris of the mountains straddling Israel and Jordan — and built from instruments that place the music geographically: the Saz, the long-necked Turkish lute central to Anatolian folk and rock traditions, moving over groovy organs, far-out synthesizers and a locked-down electric bass. The frame of reference is library music and 1960s and 1970s jazz-funk, but the Saz pulls the whole thing eastward, and Danell's instinct for groove keeps it from becoming pastiche. The music sits in a similar territory to Ananda Shankar's East-West fusions and the loopier end of Madlib's globetrotting library investigations. \"Lotus\" was sampled by Czarface — the group formed by underground hip-hop duo 7L \u0026amp; Esoteric and Wu-Tang Clan's Inspectah Deck — on \"The Czarlaac Pit\" from their 2022 album \u003cem\u003eCzarmageddon\u003c\/em\u003e, a track that also featured Tom Hardy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the second edition repress on PP1001, released in Sweden on 19 June 2020, one week after the international release of \u003cem\u003eWabi Sabi\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Piano Piano","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43263142559803,"sku":null,"price":75.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0630\/3203\/3339\/files\/a3811029397_10.jpg?v=1772861647"},{"product_id":"sven-wunder-natura-morta-2021-piano-piano-vinyl-lp","title":"Sven Wunder - Natura Morta (2021 Piano Piano Vinyl LP)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSven Wunder - \u003cem\u003eNatura Morta\u003c\/em\u003e | Vinyl LP - 2021 Piano Piano Repress (PP1003)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSven Wunder followed \u003cem\u003eEastern Flowers\u003c\/em\u003e (2019) and \u003cem\u003eWabi Sabi\u003c\/em\u003e (2020) with a third album that moved its conceptual frame from Turkish-Anatolian folk and Japanese aesthetics to Italian visual art. \u003cem\u003eNatura Morta\u003c\/em\u003e — \"dead nature\" in Italian, the traditional term for still life painting — takes the genre's history as its structural and thematic organiser. The album opens with \"En Plein Air,\" which refers to the practice of painting in natural outdoor light, and moves through \"Impasto\" (the technique of applying paint in thick, textured strokes), \"Prussian Blue\" (the synthetic pigment that replaced natural lapis lazuli), \"Alla Prima\" (wet-on-wet painting, completed in a single session), \"Umber\" (the earth pigment from Umbria), the Baroque reference of \"Barocco, Ma Non Troppo,\" and \"Pentimento\" — the word for traces of earlier paint layers visible beneath the surface of a finished work. \"Memento Mori\" is both a genre of still life painting and a Latin phrase meaning \"remember that you will die.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe musical approach is the synthesis of Wunder's previous two albums: the jazz-funk rhythmic language of \u003cem\u003eEastern Flowers\u003c\/em\u003e combined with the broader orchestral and atmospheric range of \u003cem\u003eWabi Sabi\u003c\/em\u003e, now with a 15-piece string section and closer ties to the Italian library tradition of the 1970s. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Piano Piano","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43296165363771,"sku":null,"price":80.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0630\/3203\/3339\/files\/a2162085194_10.jpg?v=1774134525"}],"url":"https:\/\/lushliferecords.com.au\/collections\/sven-wunder.oembed","provider":"Lush Life Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}