The two composers and sound artists Stefan Klaverdal and Håkan Lidbo have put their minds together and created the album “Contemporary Composers play Love ballads vol. 1”. Here they take on some of the most popular love ballads from the eighties and the nineties, ballads that here come out with a completely different shape and meaning.

They write that they both have a fascination for bad taste and the cultural codes which mark the lines between pop culture and fine culture. Here they want to see if they can distill drops of darkness or artistic depth from these classics which we’ve heard som many times before. They have worked with the complete original recordings, which they have time-stretched, chopped, distilled, added effects to, well, in many ways transformed the songs into something different. And the songs do become interesting again. When they succeed they extract distinctive characteristics from the tracks and turn them into a completely new mood or ambience. Here are two of my favourites where Bryan Adams’ love declaration no longer sound that innocent, and Whitneys Houston’s long tones become a eerie and haunting. Listen to the entire album on their Soundcloud page.

Stefan Klaverdal’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify

Håkan Lidbo’s site – on Spotify