Different Rooms

After releasing a collaboration with new age pioneer Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer recorded the material that ended up forming the bulk of Different Rooms. The duos music is a mixture of live improvisation, studio experimentation, and field recordings, often created during the editing process. Different Rooms includes sounds captured from within cities as well as home environments, and its meant to have a more direct, present feel, rather than the otherworldliness of their first album together, Recordings from the Aland Islands. The pieces generally blend Chius warm, alert synth pulsations and ambient textures with Honers multi-tracked viola playing, which sometimes glides smoothly, as on the shimmering "Long and Short Delays," and other times takes more of a central, melodic role, as it does on the more complex "Speaking in Parallel." Two tracks incorporate elements of previous live collaborations recorded in 2023. "Side by Side" is built around Jeff Parkers ascending guitar figures, while Josh Johnsons gentle saxophone notes are woven throughout "Different Rooms," one of a few selections featuring nearly subliminal vocalizations by Giovanna Jacques. "One of Eight" submerges chanting and bells recorded at a Taiwanese temple under trickling, pulsing synths. Two tracks near the end are meant as reflections of pieces from earlier in the album, with "Side by Side (reflected)" electronically re-creating Parkers ascending guitar sequences, and "Mean Solar Time (reflected)" resembling a more lullaby-like variation on the opening composition. Different Rooms is a nebulous haze of semi-familiar melodies and half-heard voices, forming an abstract dreamscape. ~ Paul Simpson