Track Of The Day: Hauschka – Agdam

Named after the city of Agdam, which was destroyed in the 1993 Nagorno-Karabakh War in Azerbaijan, German composer and experimentalist Hauschka brings us one of the more fascinating videos so far this year to provide the backdrop for an eerie and timeless-sounding track off his new album Abandoned City.

Using a technique he has been dabbling in for a while now, prepared piano, Hauschka delivers haunting melodies fused with bright and cheery keyboard patterns, relying on a simple, repetitive hook to make this classical-yet-contemporary song absolutely spine-tingling.

With choreography featuring two female dancers who emerge as though from a cocoon, they’re soon swaying and twisting amongst a majestic snowy landscape, which eventually sees them nearing the side of a road filled with traffic. Only this time they’re covered in black, looking burnt and tattered, the video speaking volumes of the obvious damage suffered in the actual city of Agdam. Powerful and ultra-arty.