Silence Will Never Die/White Vinyl

Description

Martina Berther and Philipp Schlotter return to Hallow Ground with their second collaborative album since "Matt," a rigorous exercise in drone minimalism released in 2023. "Silence Will Never Die" was recorded in the church in the canton of Glarus that gave the duo's first album its name. Once again, the Matt church organ plays a significant role on these five tracks, oscillating between composition and improvisation. However, the two prolific musicians sought to further diversify their sonic and stylistic palette. They incorporated new instruments to record an album that combines subtlety and complexity, ephemerality and corporeality. These five tracks are "auditory microcosms carrying a calm but concentrated energy, repetitive and born from the movements of our bodies," as Schlotter and Berther describe them. "Silence Will Never Die" is as ethereal as it is visceral. The two prolific musicians use their joint project to ask fundamental questions. The conceptual foundations of "Silence Will Never Die" emerged from improvisations and conversations. "How do we recharge our batteries to contribute to society with as much positive energy as possible?" became their main question, and the duo deployed more means than before to provide musical answers. In a more complex recording setup than on "Matt," both played church organ and synthesizers, with Berther also playing electric bass and Schlotter playing zither. This allowed them to enrich their overall sound, both sonically and stylistically, while perfectly complementing their attention to detail and their talent for creating subtle and grand changes.