Olafur Arnalds

A ground-breaking new collaboration for fans of African music (Ali Farka Touré, Oumou Sangaré) as well as contemporary orchestral music (Max Richter, Olafur Arnalds, the London Symphony Orchestra) Kôrôlén is a very special collaboration between two titans in music: Toumani Diabaté, the Grammy-winning Malian kora virtuoso, and the London Symphony Orchestra, renowned worldwide for their performances of orchestral music on record, film and stage.

Silencia is the latest collection of evocative and lustrous compositions by the Nashville duo Hammock. The band’s 10th LP, Silencia closes a trilogy that began with 2017’s Mysterium, and—in the tradition of works by Arvo Pärt and Georgy Sviridov, and writers such as Li-Young Li and Maggie Ross—it is a balm, gesturing at the healing that can ascend in silence. Slow-churning and contemplative, Silencia most prominently features strings orchestrated by Viktor Orri Árnason (Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds), mists of guitar by Hammock’s Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson, the hushed drone of horns, and 20 elegiac voices from the Budapest Art Choir. The record was mixed and mastered by Francesco Donadello (Winged Victory for the Sullen, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Ben Frost) in Berlin. Founded in 2003, Hammock’s music has appeared widely in film and television, and it has been praised by The Wire, NPR, Pitchfork, The Atlantic, and other major culture media.