It is in danish, but here's a quick translation:

 

Klaus Schønning released his - now legendary - debut album "Lydglimt" in 1979, and I remember borrowing it and several of the subsequent works at Ishøj Library back in the early 80's. I was generally preoccupied with the new electronic composition music or new-age music, which also names like Mike Oldfield, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis and Andreas Vollenweider delivered in wide format these years.

For me, however, it was Mike Oldfield - and not least his momentary divine guitar playing, who won in relation to a persistent interest in me. Therefore, I have only briefly followed Klaus Schønning's otherwise quite beautiful internationally oriented career since then - apart from the few albums he made under the name The North together with Peter Brander and Kim Skovbye in 1999 and 2013.

And after a bit of research in the back catalog in connection with his new digital album "A Place Called Home" - which will be released today, April 1st - I can then state that I have missed something quite groundbreaking on the Danish music scene. Because I definitely get the feeling of an artist who, with more than 40 albums in his luggage, has managed to maintain a high level in both meditative and melodic instrumental music.

His music creates images, sets thoughts in motion, creates moods - both the joyful and the fearful. Nuanced and curious - although the template and formula have not changed much in the more than 40 years that have passed since the debut album. Klaus Schønning is a multi-instrumentalist with synthesizers and keyboards as the key to a magnificent universe where the atmospheric, the ambient and the harmonic are the fixed guides.

Last year, an anniversary edition of "Lydglimt" was released on vinyl via Frederiksberg Records. Just 500 copies were printed and they have been torn away by customers with addresses all over the world. In 2018, he also released a remake of the album under the title "Lydglimt II", which, however, has only been released digitally.

Now he is ready to invite on another new symphonic journey with the album "A Place Called Home". 10 tracks with normal playing times of between 2:37 and 5:46 - and a total playing time of about 42 minutes.

"Astronaut" is released as a single, and it sends one on a cool ascension with a painterly sound of weightlessness. As such, Klaus Schønning is not a single artist, and his album is clearly best experienced as a whole, but having said that, for example "Tectonic Dance" is actually a song with real single potential. Anyway, at least I didn't go down without explaining myself first.

Had it - or another number like "Timelapse" been used in a movie or series, it is such a track that automatically draws - and makes curious. Overall an album - which especially enjoyed in headphones - sends you on a pleasant journey where you may not get the biggest surprises or experience of your life, but you where get time and peace to feel that there is something about 'to travel is to live '- while not forgetting' to live 'is also to be able to listen - and feel when you are at home.

Next month - the 27th of May - an autobiography of Klaus Schønning will be published with the title "A Music Journey in Consonance and Dissonance" via his own company Music Venture.