ROGER ENO RELEASES RARITIES EP3 · QUARTETS TODAY
“Roger Eno’s playing … somehow feels fragile and vulnerable,
yet enduring in its majesty”
Louder Than War, review of The Turning Year, April 2022
“It’s cinematic music, driven by sprawling harmonies and fluid motion”
Pitchfork, review of The Turning Year, April 2022
Rarities EP3 · Quartets comes out this Friday, 10 February
Rarities album will be released on 21 April 2023 – the first anniversary of The Turning Year
Listen to the EP HERE
Watch performance video for “Venerable Dilemma” HERE
10 FEBRUARY 2023 (TORONTO, ON) – Roger Eno released The Turning Year, his solo debut album for Deutsche Grammophon, in April 2022, achieving widespread acclaim for its tranquil, poignant compositions. The British composer and pianist has since revisited and expanded this repertoire to create The Turning Year · Rarities, a trilogy of EPs presenting a combination of illuminating reworks, previously unreleased tracks and gems from the album sessions. All three draw from the fabric of Eno’s life – his family and the landscape and history, country lanes and waterways of his native East Anglia – and, like The Turning Year, feature artwork designed by his daughter Cecily Eno.
Following the release of Rarities · Piano last September and Rarities · Bells in November, the last of the three EPs, Rarities · Quartets, comes out on 10 February. The complete Rarities material, together with a bonus track, will be issued as an album – digitally and on vinyl – on 21 April 2023, a year on from the release of The Turning Year.
Rarities · Quartets here uniquely presents Roger’s compositions performed solely by four players from Scoring Berlin, with whom he worked on The Turning Year. This track list presents three reimagined versions of the unhurried, melancholy “Slow Motion”, about which Eno says, “I wanted to create an effect of gentle tension – suspension and resolution – borne through subtle tonal movements.” The EP is rounded off by a stunning new composition, “Venerable Dilemma”.
Having worked with violinist Rosie Toll on Piano and his daughters Cecily and Lotti Eno on Bells, Roger underlines the huge value of musical collaboration. “I cherish the beauty of working with others,” he says. “Music to me is an almost symbolic action, involving, as it does, ‘harmony’ – a synonym for love, consensuality and friendship. These EPs contain a great deal of myself and of others.”
Look out for forthcoming Roger Eno European dates in spring 2023.