Edge Conditions stands apart from anything else Jeremiah Chiu has released, either as a solo artist, in the free-funk improv group SML, or as a duo with regular collaborator Marta Sofia Honer.
Though still rooted in synthesizer-based improvisations and experiments, the album is often far more rhythmic and danceable than Chiu’s other work. While the influence of ’80s post-disco and electro is present, more than anything, the album feels like a glorious flashback to the era when groups like Tortoise were making groove-heavy, jazzy music blending rock instrumentation with electronics, and acts such as Mouse on Mars and Schneider TM were creating abstract yet brightly melodic and playful electronic music, with everything further cross-pollinated…
Tag Archive: Jeremiah Chiu
In 2017, Los Angeles multi-instrumentalists Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer traveled to the Åland Islands, an archipelago of more than 6,000 islands in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland. Their ostensible purpose was to help two friends rehab an old building in the tiny municipality of Kumlinge — population 320 — and convert it into a hotel. They brought more than just construction tools; they came prepared with a collection of instruments and electronics, and as they adjusted to their surroundings, they documented their time with musical improvisations and field recordings.
They found themselves profoundly moved by the experience, and they returned two years later to perform in a 14th century church on the island.
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 duo’s 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 it’s meant to have a more direct, present feel, rather than the otherworldliness of their first album together, Recordings from the Åland Islands.
The pieces generally blend Chiu’s warm, alert synth pulsations and ambient textures with Honer’s multi-tracked viola playing, which sometimes glides smoothly, as on the shimmering…