Blurstem

After Blurstem’s collaborative album with Andrew Tasselmyer, Midnight Letters, landing on esteemed ambient-leaning blog Stationary Travels’ Best of 2023 list and described as “palpably organic sound and welcoming, nostalgic aura that makes it easy to sink into,” Minneapolis’ Chris Bartels brings the sonic explorations to an even grander place with 2024’s Ocelli, via Western Vinyl.

“With Ocelli, I dove headfirst into the creative contrast between intimate, introspective moments and sounds, compared with the huge, grandiose sound and feel. I wanted to try and take the Blurstem project to a new level sonically and emotionally.” says Bartels, who also writes music as Elskavon, Olma, and collaboratively as Bora York and Glass Echoes.

After all, the origins of Bartels’ Blurstem project are nothing if not simple: He and his wife were gifted an old spinet piano when they bought a house in 2015. Always slightly out of tune, a little dusty sounding, and very much imperfect, the instrument has its own unique character. But it wasn’t until Chris cut up an old sweater and taped it to the strings, so as to avoid waking up their children at night, that his love for that character really took form.

While piano is certainly a part of the Elskavon sound, Bartels was writing so many new songs on this spinet that he felt the need to start a whole new project. Blurstem was birthed - at the heart of it a minimalist, raw, intimate feel uniquely contrasted with grand, spacious moments.