Daniel and I first met in 2011. We became friends through a shared interest in photography, music, hiking, and in subverting expectations and templates. Since then, we have collaborated on numerous visual and musical projects. When we decided to work together on Smelter, I gave him five recordings of my piano compositions which he treated and added his own elements to – turning them into long drone formations. These were then combined with the various water based field recordings we’d made individually.

Making records this way creates an aural archive of place/time and environment – in the same way a film photograph holds onto a vision in time: the single moment when light is suspended in microscopic halide crystals which can then be recreated and reinterpreted: a form of time travel, where the past is both fixed and also accessible in the present. Daniel is a great story teller. Every album he’s made holds a narrative, and I have been lucky enough to hear many backstories! With “ Smelter” perhaps we have created a time capsule, an index in which to place our combined story telling for listeners to share. -Faith Coloccia

When I was young kid my favourite book in the world was the Dictionary. Hey, It’s the book of life from A-Z! I worshiped the Dictionary like the holiest of books. One Sunday morning I was being bored out of my mind at church. The pastor gave a sermon and preached that “There is no definition in the dictionary for the word “Faith” and that is why it’s so special”. As soon as I got home I cracked open my holy dictionary and searched for “Faith”. Found the word in there but really not much of a definition offered. That mystery of the word “faith” stuck with me all my life and has been a great influence. I’m always searching for the impossible to define things in life. Or even try to create the undefinable! In which I strive for with my own music. What the HELL does this childhood story have anything to do with this collaboration album with Faith Coloccia???? Maybe nothing or maybe EVERYTHING! But this silly childhood church story came to mind when asked to write about our album. This collaboration recording with Faith Coloccia took many years and the longer it took for Faith Coloccia to finish it the better and stronger and even stranger the music became. Whenever Faith would apologise to me for the delay I would respond: “Faith…… I got faith in ya!” And so here we are with a collaboration album that is so special to Faith and myself that I do believe this music cannot be defined or captured by words. And that’s why it’s so special.“ Daniel Menche

@ Room 40

Auf seiner Zusammenarbeit mit der Multiinstrumentalistin Lea Bertucci (auf „Chthonic“ spielt sie Cello, Geige, Flöte und Lapsteelgitarre) – die beiden trafen sich 2019 erstmals auf einem Festival in Rio – diente als Inspiration “musings on geological scale, movements – tectonic or otherwise – of the Earth, and subterranean density and pressure.“  Dies gibt schon einen Hinweis darauf, wie der Titel des Albums zu verstehen ist, werden eben hier keine in der Unterwelt hausende Entitäten beschworen -  man schaue sich nur exemplarisch bei Discogs an, wie viele Bands Alben mit diesem Wort im Titel veröffentlicht haben.

„Amorphic Foothills“ beginnt mit in der Ferne tönenden Schlägen, es setzen Streichinstrumente ein, die wie quietschende Züge klingen, es schabt und dröhnt, zähflüssige Lavamassen scheinen sich hier zu bewegen. „Dust Storm“ vermischt Knistern, Wasserrauschen und flirrende Töne, die im Laufe des Stücks anschwellen und sich bis zum Atonalen verdichten. „Geology Of Fire“ ist dagegen ein melodischeres, weniger karges Stück. Wenn man „A Fissure Exhales“ hört, das den Eindruck erweckt, Geröllschichten verschöben sich, dann ist es hier inmitten des 12-minütigen Dröhnens – wie eigentlich auch auf dem Rest des Albums – unmöglich (noch) Instrumente entdecken zu wollen. Als letztes Stück ist „Strata“ durchzogen von einem minimalistischen Hochtönen – vielleicht lässt sich hier eine Flöte erahnen.

Das ganze Album ist geprägt  von einem Gefühl des Seltsamen, Kaum-Fassbaren und Irritierenden. Vielleicht kann man auch einfach sagen, dass angesichts der Jahrmillionen, die sich in geologischen Formationen widerspiegeln, wahrlich keine subterranen Monstrositäten nötig sind, um den Hörenden erschauern zu lassen. (MG)

Label: American Dreams 

“One fine day in the year 2005 I was on my way to a recording session here in Tokyo, in a part of the city with which I was relatively unfamiliar. Walking from the train station to the studio, I passed a second hand shop, the not-too-fancy type where one never knows what one will find, do one? Such stores are irresistible to me, and at the risk of being perhaps a few minutes late to my session, I popped in to have a quick look around. And there it was: tucked away on a big steel shelf at the back of the cavernous and somewhat dusty store there it sat: a Roland JUNO 60 synthesizer. A legendary piece of gear, and one which I immediately decided to purchase due to the very, *ahem*… reasonable asking price of… 10,000 yen.[...]

Now, I’m not a synthesizer player, per se. Drummer, percussionist, singer and songwriter, dabbler in certain idiosyncratic string instruments, avid squeezer of rubber pigs and chickens, yes, all of the above and a little more, but synth player or specialist? No, not at all. Wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do with this relatively heavy and bulky 61-key beast. Truth be told, reselling it at a handsome profit seemed likely. Once I started tinkering with it, though, I fell in love with the very pleasing sounds I began coaxing out of it, and immediately began recording the results. [...] A drummer or percussionist’s stock in trade is creating rhythms by the organized repetition of such sounds. I found something altogether different with the JUNO, however, and started making rhythms out of sounds with little or no attack, and, often, with continuous sustain. Rhythmic pulse was there, but without the attack. Motion and propulsion were there, but in a continuous, flowing sonic event, not a series of separate, repeated events. If percussive rhythm could be compared to a person walking down the street, each footstep against the pavement a single, sharp, sonic occurrence, marking the journey from one place to another, then the rhythms emerging from my JUNO were more akin to the movement of a snake, undulating down the same street as a waveform, a series of rhythmic… curves.

And what I soon discovered, upon making a number of recordings of this “soft” rhythmic phenomenon, was that these separate recordings could be combined and layered, to create a polyrhythmic sonic environment. The patterns could speak to each other, bounce off each other, move through each other. This was exciting to me, because polyrhythm has always been a key interest and great love of mine. But with the lack of percussive attack in the sounds being used, there was a new freedom at work here: the elasticity of the sounds and patterns meant that there would be no clashing, no bumping up against each other at *the wrong time*. [...]

So, back in 2005 I put together these pieces, and I called the project Oscillendulum, a word I coined from the words oscillation and pendulum. Oscillation for, well, what the JUNO does so nicely! And pendulum, like the kind you see in an old grandfather clock. It is the familiar embodiment of repetition, but it too has a ‘softness’ about its steady rhythmic motion: it swings continuously in the air, it brings the pulse, but it never hits anything. Hope you’ll sit back and let these soft polyrhythms, these Oscillendulums, wrap themselves around you.” (Samm Bennett)

Porträt © Ito