The team of modular synthesist Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer gave us 2022's Recordings From The Åland Islands, and in 2024 the pair joined forces with Ariel Kalma on The Closest Thing To Silence. They've also been busy with various solo endeavors. Today Chiu and Honer are back with news of another duo album, Different Rooms, coming this summer via the jazz and experimentalism hub International Anthem.
Different Rooms is so titled because Chiu and Honer maintain adjacent studio spaces in Los Angeles. The album includes improvisational pieces recorded with Jeff Parker and Josh Johnson, but Chiu and Honer developed most of the music on tour in the fall of 2024 and brought it to fruition over the winter. They shared this statement:
This record 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.
Opening track "Mean Solar Time," out today, is a meditative stunner that seems to open up a portal to somewhere cool for just under three minutes. Listen below.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Mean Solar Time"
02 "Long and Short Delays"
03 "Side By Side" (Feat. Jeff Parker)
04 "One Of Eight"
05 "Before And After Signs"
06 "Different Rooms" (Feat. Josh Johnson)
07 "Speaking In Parallel"
08 "Side by Side (reflected)"
09 "Mind by a Way"
10 "Mean Solar Time (reflected)"
Different Rooms is out 6/20 on International Anthem.
