I thought I was going to go in a different direction. I realized, “Hmm, this is kind of the most difficult thing I could have chosen to tour and try and promote.” It’s a very niche thing. There were a lot of venues in New York that wouldn’t let me prepare the pianos. It’s funny you say that, because after I made Bloodroot, it wasn’t in my mind to make another record of prepared piano, just because I actually ran into quite a bit of difficulty when it came to performing that material live. What made you want to come back to this method of playing and composing? Ultraviolet isn’t your first foray into using prepared piano. We caught up with Moran during her trip to Los Angeles recently to talk about the inspiration behind Ultraviolet, the impressive amount of work that went into crafting the material for mass consumption, and signing with Warp Records. It’s already hypnotizing before the gentle purrs of synths come floating over the horizon. Even as the normal tones of the piano comes flowing through the mix, it’s dominated by the clanging, pinging of the prepared strings - a sound that finds a midpoint between the percussive beauty of a gamelan or hammered dulcimer, and the hypnotic thrum of a harpsichord. Adding layers of electronics and with a little assistance from Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) on three tracks, she came away with some of her most thrilling material to date.

When she listened back to those recordings, Moran realized that she had something to work with, raw material that she could shape into, for lack of a better word, songs. While she was still utilizing the prepared piano that helped form the material for 2017’s Bloodroot, with various sizes of bolts and screws stuck in between the strings to change its sound, Moran spent a day recording free-flowing improvisations, unsure if they would yield anything worthwhile.

The first descriptor that Kelly Moran uses to describe herself in her bio is “composer.” The New York-based artist is also a performer - a pianist whose work fits neatly into that cozy space where contemporary classical and electronic music frequently consort - but on albums like 2016’s The Optimist and 2010’s Microcosms, the music was meticulously created, notated, and, sometimes, deconstructed.įor her new album Ultraviolet, Moran slipped into a new mode of creation.

All of Me by Kelly Moran