Bios & promo — benchmark artistes

Otto Andreas Totland was born in Porsgrunn, Norway 1979. He started composing music using computers, but soon found the tools limiting effects on creativity. The simple complexity of the piano drew him further and further away from the digital – finding more joy in a single sustaining string than the limitless impossibilities of the virtual. Being a self taught pianist; Otto developed a unique and personal compositional style. Drawing inspiration from a deep history of Norwegian folk music, romantic-era composers and early Scandinavian jazz – he weaves a minimalistic, melancholic and meditative soundscape. His music transports you from the cacophony of life, to a cabin deep in the Norwegian wilderness. As you lay your head on the piano everything else fades away – it's just you, Otto and the piano – a fragile, beautiful and intimate space making way for quiet introspection. Otto's career started with Deaf Center – an ongoing project in collaboration with his close childhood friend Erik Skodvin. Totland's gentle and melodic piano work provides a haunting relief to Erik's dark, sometimes brooding, ambient noise and deep strings. In collaboration with Huw Roberts on the Serein label, Otto further cements his love for ambient music with Nest – creating a highly cinematic experience as he does with all his music. Every composition takes you on a journey to a different place, weaving stories from sound – powerful yet gentle, always hopefully melancholic. With Companion, Otto A Totland completes his trilogy of personal, sparse piano compositions, following in the footsteps of 2014´s Pinô and 2017´s The Lost..

Otto A Totland's modern compositional elements are most widely recognized as half of the Norwegian duo Deaf Center, where his melancholic, intricate piano work provides haunting relief to the beds of noise and deep strings from Erik K Skodvin. His first solo full-length, Pinô, was released on Sonic Pieces in January 2014.

The Norwegian composer and self-taught pianist Otto A. Totland, who also performs as one half of cult ambient-classical-drone duo Deaf Center, shares a new sixteen-track album, Exin, via LEITER. 'Exin' follows 2021's 'Companion', the final part of a trilogy of solo piano records that began with 2014's 'Pinô' and continued with 2019's 'The Lost'. Totland's musical miniatures are as emotionally eloquent as they are technically elegant, with this latest set proving no exception.

Otto Andreas Totland was born in Porsgrunn, Norway 26. April 1979. Totland's modern compositional elements are also recognized as half of the Norwegian duo Deaf Center, where his melancholic, intricate piano work provides haunting relief to the beds of noise and deep strings from Erik K Skodvin. With Companion, Otto A Totland completes his trilogy of personal, sparse piano compositions, following in the footsteps of 2014´s Pinô and 2017´s The Lost. Otto further determines himself as a timeless composer who follows nothing but his own gut and heart.

With Companion, Otto A Totland completes his trilogy of personal, sparse piano compositions, following in the footsteps of 2014's Pinô and 2017's The Lost. As a self-taught pianist, Otto further determines himself as a timeless composer who follows nothing but his own gut and heart. With Companion he has matured in his own craft, and the various pieces here feel confident and absolutely beautiful in a way that sees the end of the trilogy as a warm, empathic document for the times. Companion was again recorded at Nils Frahm's Berlin studio for optimal warmth and space...at the historic Studio 3 at Funkhaus. Companion is exactly what it's title sets out to be. A friend that can follow and comfort in both good or bad times.

Otto A Totland's modern compositional elements are most widely recognized as half of the Norwegian duo Deaf Center, where his melancholic, intricate piano work provides haunting relief to the beds of noise and deep strings from Erik K Skodvin. Pinô is the first full-length release by Totland, though his solo work has been released once, as the 5-minute A-side of Sonic Pieces 7inch Harmony From the Past. His album is a haunting modern compositional treasure, expressed through instrumentals completely unique to Totland and captured masterfully by Nils Frahm at Durton Studios.

The Lost follows and expands on Otto A Totland's intimate debut solo piano album Pinô from 2014. Once again several days were spent in Nils Frahm's legendary Durton studio to lay down both composed and improvised pieces of quiet beauty. While mostly residing in a small Norwegian coastal town, Otto has been trying to escape the constant movement towards fast paced, polluted lives, where it seems like sounds and impressions never stop.