178: Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer - Long and Short Delays
Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer describe the songs on their new album as both a collage and a "decidedly urban" album. The two worked together previously on Recordings from the Åland Islands, which, as the title alludes to, was a transportive collection, one which took you from here to there. New album Different Rooms, as the written intro says, intends to meet you where you're at.
The result of that is something altogether more direct. The songs are still full of wonder and intrigue but there's a new kind of energy here, an in-the-moment candour that often feels thrilling.
In our typical process, much of our material is collaged and combines moments of live improvisation, field recordings, and in-studio experimentation. This record, however, marks an evolution in our approach to studio production.
Our studios are side-by-side. When we were writing this album, you might have found us tracking viola stacks in one studio while, in the other, we were writing through-composed themes and rearranging the material. Granular synthesis and tape manipulation are key tools we use to create variation and movement in a composition. This process often yields surprising results, capturing the emotion but expressing it in unexpected ways. It feels essential that we embrace a bit of chance.
Throughout Different Rooms the pairs two key instruments – Jermiah's modular synth and Marta's viola – find new and illuminating ways of dancing alongside and within each other's orbits, a kind of spiral that we know to be manipulated but feels somewhat human and soulful at the same time.
What I mean to say though, really, is that at 5am this morning I was walking through the deserted streets of Bologna as the sun quietly rose in the distance, as home grew closer and my time away began to sink slowly into memory. And in that sleepwalk, all woozy and heavy and strangely lit, this record felt like magic; like strange light falling on a new day. I hope it feels like that for you too.
Different Rooms LP is out now, via International Anthem
Buy it here, via Bandcamp
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