Today, international experimental four-piece Themes For Great Cities share full-length debut album Themes For Great Cities: Tallinn, an innovative and sensory love letter to the city of Tallinn, Estonia, out everywhere now via Moroderik Musik, including a limited run on vinyl available here. Plus, "Jazz Halyards," the latest single built around flagpoles in the wind and light filtered through leaves in an Estonian park, is out everywhere now.
In September 2021, four musicians gathered to celebrate the city of Tallinn, Estonia, and harvested sounds that tell the story of the city. The group consists of Mew's Jonas Bjerre (modular synthesizer, piano), Erki Pärnoja (guitar, keyboard), Jonas Kaarnamets (guitar, keyboard), and Alex Maiolo (modular synthesizer, recordings). Together, the four-piece create distinctly their own sound using methods never used before, without MIDI, and only with modular synths, augmented by guitar and keyboards. The idea came from the desire to shed light on cities that don't often get attention in effort to highlight and celebrate hidden treasures that lay within lesser-known metropolises.
The group's debut album Themes For Great Cities: Tallinn, out today, is an eight track tribute to the city of Tallinn, Estonia. It creatively brings together the present moment in the city and its layered past using the sounds of the city. Though the ultimate goal was to make music, the final result proved to be even more than just music. Maiolo explains, "The only directive was that the end result be musical. Some of the sounds we used in the piece are recognizable. Some were reassembled in a way that they maybe seemed familiar, but not quite. Some were 'behind the scenes,' dictating other sounds, rhythms, or changes. This is an allegory for the various levels cities affect us, from the ostensible to the subconscious."
Rather than a traditional song about a city, the musicians decided to use the real, natural sounds of the city to act as a fifth band member and bring the music to life. Over two weeks, they immersed themselves in Tallinn and took recordings of everything–trams, the sea, footsteps, church services, markets, cafés, and flagpoles rattling in the wind. Remarkably, they even converted readings of light to sound. Diving into the process, Maiolo adds,"We used stored light readings and other elements as instructions. Mike Walters, who has built devices for Devo, Gotye, and Bon Iver, to name a few, created the device that allowed us to do that. So the reflections off of the harbor, converted to voltage, ultimately created pads. The light filtering through the leaves in the park created melodies, and passing trains dictated rhythms."
"Jazz Halyards," the latest single, was the first track on the album to come together. The track builds around a shuffling rhythm due to the cables of flagpoles rattling in a windstorm. Maiolo explains, "The rhythmic pattern is dictated by another cable’s rattle, unheard, but issuing commands the background. Yet another cable hitting its flagpole advances a sequencer, creating a bass loop, and here, guitar is added. As the song progresses, ethereal pitches that mimic an old organ swell up." Providing more insight into the sounds and the actual recording process, Maiolo adds, "Those notes are controlled by recorded light readings, filtered through the fall leaves at the Taani Kuninga Aed Park (or Danish King's Garden) where, legend has it, the Danish flag fell to earth from the heavens."
The group's second live performance in May 2022 occurred on the Russian border just three months after the invasion of Ukraine and used sounds from the border crossing and river to influence distortion. It is this thoughtful creativity and meticulous attention to detail that shaped the project and ultimately brought it to life.
The album was engineered by Kaarel Tamra, Adam McDaniel (Animal Collective, Angel Olsen, Moses Sumney, Indigo DeSouza), and Alex Maiolo. It was then mastered by Pete Weiss (Dusty Springfield, Aimee Mann, Mac Davis). The forthcoming LP was pressed to recycled red vinyl at Citizen Vinyl in Asheville, NC.
The release of the full album follows the previously shared first single "Magazyn Sosysky." It was built around a real interaction in a Soviet-era open air market. Describing the song and its unique sound, Maiolo says, "Tram recordings lay the foundation as clocked clattered dishes from the ERR cafe (Estonia’s BBC) meet TR808 drums for a techno rhythm. Synth stabs and pads build, and we hear from a man asking where he can buy sausage in the old market. This song references how Estonia’s Nordic modernity meets with its Soviet past every moment." In addition to their own musical work, the group partners with local artists to enhance their work. This time, Themes For Great Cities recruited Estonian multi-media artist Alyona Movko-Mägi to add to their message who created live visuals for the track as well as the single and album art.
Watch the group's first live performance of the track at the opening of Tallinn Music Week 2021 here.
In an interview with Tape Op to celebrate the one year anniversary of the track's live performance, Maiolo expands on the idea of the allegory and the group's field recordings, stating, "There are things that we recognize in municipalities, obviously –– how they look, smell, and feel. Then there are things that affect us on a level that maybe is more of a feeling; and then, deeper, there are all sorts of subconscious cues that can affect our relationship to it as well."
Using the sounds of Tallinn, Estonia, Themes For Great Cities share their daring debut album merging experimental music and field recordings bringing music where it has never gone before. Themes For Great Cities: Tallinn is out everywhere now, including a limited run on vinyl available here via Moroderik Musik. Stay up-to-date as the group sonically explores cities around the world on Facebook and Instagram.
Listen: "Magazyn Sosysky" Watch: "Magazyn Sosysky" (Live from Tallinn Music Week 2021) | 
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