Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer - Different Rooms (International Anthem)
- The Slow Music Movement
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
*** This blog post first appeared in TSMM's July 13th Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***
Jeremiah Chiu is a busy boy with his community organising, graphic designing, lecturing and music making. Marta Sofia Honer is a contemporary violist/violinist based in Los Angeles who has an admirable list of credits, supplying her string work to everyone from Lewis Capaldi and The Weekend right through to Bitchin’ Bajas and Adrian Younge, and there’s not many musicians with that sort of collaborative diversity to their name.
The new album sees these studio neighbours embarking on another ethereal voyage of discovery to the land where ambient, new age, minimalism and classical meet, and after the joys of their first trip why wouldn’t they? The album is a collage of songs, field recordings, studio experiments and motifs recorded at the tale end of 2024 and the dawning of 2025, coupled with some welcome live recordings of Jeff Parker and Josh Johnson from 2023.
Minimal tones, blissful synths and nuzzled strings get the album off to a (yogic) flying start and set the tone for the rest of the album, being immediately followed by more good natured electroacoustic endeavour just to reassure those getting comfortable. “Side by Side” sees Jeff Parker ditching his jazz hat for a nice line in succinct, finger picked minimalism. “Before and After Signs” morphs between gentle cinematic ambient, star gazing repetition and low key classical passages. I could go on, but you must have the idea by now. Hit play and if you like the first moments then you’ll enjoy the last and everything in between.
Playlist Companion
Find Chiu and Honer in the Slowtronic Playlist: