Turtle - Landmass - A brand new album from celebrated documentary score composer Jon Cooper

Jon Cooper aka Turtle is to release his first artist album since 2017’s ‘Human’. ‘Landmass’ will be released on 24 March 2023 through Old World – New World Recordings and is his third official release as Turtle having also released the acclaimed ‘Who Knows’ EP in 2013.

‘Landmass’ is a beautiful body of work that flows naturally as one piece of music and is inspired by the sparse surroundings of Jon’s studio in Argyll, Scotland, an area he moved to to try and escape the noise of the city and a move that has directly impacted on his creative process.

Jon Cooper aka Turtle… “Since I started producing music I have never gone into a track with any preconceived ideas, I let the music develop in its own way so my direct surroundings have always played a huge part in how it sounds and the hustle of the city was something I felt I needed to get away from. This was a cathartic experience in making it - its a real outpouring of love for the Scottish countryside and the beauty I’m lucky enough to live in and see every day!”

‘Mars’ the records second release will be available from January 18 and was inspired by conversations Jon had with his late Uncle Archibald - a particle physicist and amateur science fiction writer. Jon’s mind would be blown with his theories on interdimensional space travel and how humanity would start colonising other planets by 2040.

Jon’s musical journey is one of experimentation and passion. A regular of the electronic scene in Glasgow in the late 90s/early 2000’s, he started to experiment with DJing and music production more for his mates entertainment than with any aspiration of a career as one of the most understated electronic artists Scotland has produced.

His white label releases soon started to become a staple in the Scottish electronica scene, and Jon’s fascination with creating music purely through “trial, error and feel” started to grow and demand for his records became more and more.

Jon’s approach to music has never changed. Not musically trained and self proclaims to “not being able to read a note of music!”, he is heavily influenced by his surroundings and experimentation. Naturally his music evolved away from dance music to a much more fluid and experimental sound that was not defined by getting played in clubs.

As Jons music developed, his unique sound caught the attention of award-winning documentary film-maker Fernando Villena. Villena commissioned Jon to compose the scores for Any One of Us and Dear Rider, which were successful and led to Jon working with Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen on the multi-award-winning film The Alpinist. In all three documentaries, Jon was given complete creative freedom to develop the sound as he saw fit.

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