Akleja - Second Album - Im Verborgenen

Almost five years have passed since the release of our first album Wasser und Erde. During this time, we have played many concerts, experienced a lot, met many new people and worked on our musical skills. All these experiences have also helped us to refine our own musical style.

So now it's time to finally release our second album! It will contain many new instrumental folk pieces, both original compositions and traditional pieces from rediscovered manuscripts that we have grown fond of.

The album is titled Im Verborgenen. Behind this title are all the little things whose significance stays hidden at first ("Im Verborgenen"), but if we go through the world with open eyes, we realize how much they enrich our lives: A blackbird delights us every day with its song. A small sheet music booklet with clues to rediscovered manuscripts shows us the way to musical treasures. A deep friendship develops from a short conversation in passing and a curious Norwegian word becomes a way of life. For us, all these things harbor a hint of music which we want to share with you.

We recorded the album at Jürgen Treyz's Artes Studio (Cara, Deitsch and others) and he has succeeded in capturing the sounds of our instruments and the special intimacy of an acoustic folk duo. We recorded all the pieces in the same room and deliberately chose not to have a bombastic production with lots of additional instruments, pads and effects, as we want to offer you a listening experience that feels like you're listening to one of our live concerts.

For layout and design, we worked together with the fantastic Swedish illustrator Saga Mariah Sandberg, who put a lot of thoughts and attention to detail into her designs.

But now we need your help, because so far we have financed this project completely on our own. We are not backed by a label, a record publisher or anything similar - but you! Only with your support can we press the album on CD and release it!

This project is aimed at all lovers of authentic and handmade music. Our aim is to release a varied and touching instrumental folk album. If you love music with depth, sometimes atmospheric and melancholic, sometimes playful and dreamy, you've come to the right place. With each of our instrumental pieces, we tell a musical story without words.

With your contribution you support independent musicians, because we are not under contract with any of the big names in the music industry, but take care of all facets of our music ourselves. From the songs to the communication with our fans.

Instrumental folk music offers the opportunity to convey atmospheres, feelings and moods in a very special way. After our concerts, the audience often tell us that they've never experienced instrumental music like this before, but were very moved by the atmospheres and soundscapes.
We think that more people should experience this special kind of music. Our new album Im Verborgenen is a contribution to this genre and your support helps us to spread this type of music.

While instrumental folk music is more well known in other countries (e.g. Belgium, Denmark or Sweden) and also receives funding (for example by state cultural funds), in our home country Germany it only represents a niche without such funding opportunities. We are therefore very grateful for the personal support by music lovers like you. You give us the financial security to be able to realize this project sustainably.

So far, we have covered all costs of the realization and production of the album completely by ourselves. We are an independent music duo, without a label or other financial support. If we reach our first goal of 2.000€ we will be able to finance the pressing of the CD, release of the album and the costs for StartNext.

However, this would only cover a little less than a third of the total cost of producing the album. Should we raise more money with your help, we will use it to cover the other necessary expenses for the following points: