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LP
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ROKU 045LP
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$31.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 10/17/2025
Learning, Sophie Agnel's first solo LP, feels like the dark, physical inversion of her excellent Song which came out on Relative Pitch. Sinking her unique sound into vinyl for the first time, the LP arrives as Agnel recovers from a brain tumor -- a shocking discovery that requires her to start again with the piano. It's a terrifying prospect, but Agnel has been here before, having reorientated herself almost entirely away from her early classical training over the last four decades of her work. Born in Paris in the '60s and playing her parents piano as soon as she could stand up, Agnel quickly grew tired of the classical world. What frustrated her was the strange disconnect between the frame of the piano and its keyboard - a weird boundary that seemed to form some hushed code of etiquette. If you see Agnel play now, the body of her piano is littered with fish tins, ping pong balls, wooden blocks -- not that you'd recognize their sounds. Having absorbed the language of the European avant-garde, Agnel is known for pulling the piano's interior outside of itself by tipping her handbag into it. But these "strange sounds" don't just come from Cage -- they also share the poetic force of Cecil Taylor and Learning demonstrates that Agnel's work on the piano's keyboard is just as important as what she's littered on its strings. The record lets loose her ability to unleash a formidable sound mass and then rope it back to one single, clarifying note. With one hand, Agnel plays 88 tuned drums and on the other an enormous guitar -- with the LP rotating through oncoming trains, and blues harmonica and feedback. It's single-minded stuff, borne out of a dedication to a wholly personal language of gesture, accumulation and deft reduction. Learning arrives in a reverse board sleeve designed by Jereon Wille. Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Billy Steiger on 6th June 2023 and 4th June 2024. Mixed by James Dunn and Benjamin Pagier. Side B edited by Benjamin Pagier. Mastered and cut by Loop-O. Front photograph by Aimé Agnel. Typography and layout by Jeroen Wille.
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