Album buried underground for more than a year takes classical number one spot

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Louise Thomas

Editor

An album by the “Banksy of classical music” that lay buried in Orkney for more than a year before being unearthed by fans has topped the UK classical chart.

Scottish composer and producer Erland Cooper wrote and recorded Carve The Runes Then Be Content With Silence three years ago with chamber string group Studio Collective and violinist Daniel Pioro.

The only physical recording of the album was then immediately “planted” in the ground in Orkney, where Cooper grew up, and all digital copies were permanently deleted.

Fans following a “treasure hunt of clues” left by Cooper eventually found the tape in late 2022, and the album was performed to the public for the first time in London’s Barbican Hall in June 2024.

On his website Cooper wrote: “In early 2021, I planted the only existing recording of a new work deep in the soil of Orkney.

“The master tape was buried with a violin, the full score, a letter in a biscuit tin & a special stone marking the spot. A treasure hunt of clues was revealed for you to search if so wished.

“In late 2022, my tape was found by Victoria and Dan Rhodes. They discovered it by understanding the poetry of the work and examining the physical rock formations in photos I revealed.”

The album was then released in September 2024, exactly as it sounded, after lying underground for more than a year.

Speaking after the album was released, Cooper said: “I think poet George Mackay Brown would be rather tickled by this.

“I know he had a deep connection to community, landscape and the music of it all, so to celebrate nature’s wild contribution to composition, and the resilience of both, is a glorious thing.

“I’ve so much gratitude to everyone listening and buying this record, even had it emerged from the soil as silence.

“Huge thanks to my record label for being so bold and supportive. A win for Orkney, nature and the seedlings of ideas.

“May the words and music fly high and dive deep like a gannet. For the islands we sing.”

Carve The Runes Then Be Content With Silence is Cooper’s first classical number one album, and earned him a Number 1 Award from the Official Charts Company.

The award trophy itself will now be “planted” underground in an undisclosed location, and will belong to whoever finds it.

Tom Lewis, co-president of record label Decca, said: “Erland is the Banksy of classical music.

“He brilliantly and fearlessly melds the worlds of composition and performance art.

“This is his greatest and riskiest work yet. And to think that it could have all disintegrated before any of us heard a note. That’s so audacious.”

Cooper will tour in October and November, with dates in the UK, Europe and the US.

Carve The Runes Then Be Content With Silence is released by Mercury KX.