Midori Hirano & Brueder Selke Share Two Meditative New Singles

Ahead of the release of their debut collaborative album Split Scale on January 24th, acclaimed Berlin composers Brueder Selke and Midori Hirano have shared two sublime new singles: "Scale G" and "Scale AA". 

The album’s premise was simple, explain Brueder Selke: “we wanted to visually relate to Newton and his color wheels, which were based on the musical scale: Newton wanted – simply put – to create a parallelism with music. Namely, that the color wheel from violet to purple to red comes back around in the same way notes in a scale repeat in an octave. One color – one tone. In this way, melodies were transformed into a linear sequence of corresponding colors.”

"Scale G" coalesces like shapes in the fog, instrumental vapors and sparse piano fragments building slowly into a yearning melody as the track pushes from fragile atmospherics to vivid emotional peaks. "Scale AA" is one of the album’s most explicitly electronic, rhythmic moments, the trio's instrumental flourishes orbiting a prismatic synthesizer pulse, pushing ever skyward before the piece breaks apart into astral ambience. Both pieces are painted with graceful melancholy and curiosity, at times lavishly exploring single hues or technicolor gradients all stemming from the tonal center.

Split Scale is the work of highly skilled players and composers, whose exploration of the ombré of tonality within the simple scale, manages to have shared two sublime new singles: "Scale G" and "Scale AA". Demonstrating the breadth and depth of the trio's artistry, the tracks translate their respective foundational scales into two very different, yet equally affecting explorations of mood and atmosphere.

Photo credit: Sylvia Steinhäuser