“Acoustic Tales” is more of a trip to another country than it is an album...

Where albums are generally collections of songs, this release is comprised of territories, each vast in scope – rolling hills, panoramic horizons and acres of fields. Each track is a full day in this wilderness - traversing hillsides, rivers and embankments, up hill and down dale. Each trip is undertaken differently, with the sun in the sky throwing different angles of light and illuminating hidden aspects of the terrain.

Christoph Berg built this world throughout a two-year period, with the stated aim of integrating the literary traits of Kafka and Hemingway into an auditory form, seamlessly blending cinematic character with a subtle and mature melodic personality. The restrained arrangements are draped around melancholic yet triumphant airs, representing a dramatic leap into the assured and dignified confidence of a skilled practitioner at work.

Nils Frahm at Durton Studio in Berlin has mastered the project from analogue tape, and the deep corners of the tracks are tactile and textured as a result. Assisting is cellist Danny Norbury, adding signature flair on ‘Tale 4’.

The literary worlds Berg is channeling often represent alternate worlds to the ones we inhabit, reimagined as familiar but distant metaphysical versions of places in time. “Acoustic Tales” is the same – a window into a black and white slow motion landscape, embodied in a master class of modern classical composition, textural acoustic sound design and subtle electronic layering.