Shards

Shards is a London based vocal group led by singer, composer and producer Kieran Brunt. After collaborating with Terry Riley in 2016, Brunt was asked by the Barbican to form a choral group for Nils Frahm's Possibly Colliding festival that summer. Following the success of the shows, Frahm invited Brunt to join him in Berlin to collaborate on choral arrangements for his recent album All Melody. Shards have since gone on to collaborate with other notable artists, including Luke Howard, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Anna von Hausswolff, Erland Cooper and Squid. Brunt details how he put Shards together: “I decided to go for 12 singers, capable of creating a good amount of noise but also small enough to get to know each other intimately. I also knew that I wanted to work with not just great voices, but singers with lots of personality and open minds when it comes to experimenting and trying things out. Each of the singers in Shards brings a very distinctive musical personality to the group, something which Brunt was eager to emphasise on their debut record. Rather than aiming for a seamless blend when recording, the differences between voices has been intentionally highlighted — celebrating their unique textures and inviting the listener to hear their minutest details up-close. Shards is Kieran Brunt, Lucy Cronin, Sarah Latto, Kate Huggett, Chris Huggon, Jack Lawrence-Jones, Rose Martin, Augustus Perkins Ray, Oli Martin-Smith, Josephine Stephenson and Héloïse Werner.