Ariel Kalma and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe team up for FRKWYS

A 12th edition of the cross generational series from RVNG Intl entitled We Know Each Other Somehow will arrive in April.

After a highly enjoyable 12 months of releases from RVNG Intl. last year, we have been waiting eagerly to discover what wig-flipping treats the New York label have in store for 2015. First on the agenda is a 12th edition of their long running FRKWYS series of collaborative cross media projects which finds the label again working with Ariel Kalma again following last year’s comprehensive retrospective of the French musician, An Evolutionary Music (Original Recordings: 1972 – 1979).

Taking a more contemporary approach, We Know Each Other Somehow is a collection of original compositions recorded by Kalma with Thrill Jockey artist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe in the secluded part of coastal Australia which the Frenchman calls home. According to a typically in-depth RVNG press release, it was the sounds Lowe explored on his 2012 Timon Irnok Manta LP for Type that laid the seeds of FRKWYS collaboration in the label’s mind, and fate conspired to land both artists gigs in San Francisco soon after.

It was here that Lowe’s modular synth in a vintage suitcase caught the attention of Kalma, and a clear creative bond was established and plans made for recording sessions in the latter”s home studio in Main Arm, Australia, whilst the former was on tour. Field recordings are key to the six tracks on We Know Each Other Somehow with Lowe describing them as “the collective voice” around which the pair play with wind instruments and signal sources.

To accompany this album, RVNG have also commissioned respected visual artists designers Misha Hollenbach and Johann Rashid to document the recording process undertaken by Lowe and Kalma for a complementary film called Sunshine Soup. Recorded on handheld HD and 8mm cameras, Sunshine Soup is described as a non-linear film “keyed to the outer-boundary music created by Lowe and Kalma”. A brief trailer for the documentary can be viewed below and should offer a hint at the sun bleached style Hollenbach and Rashid accomplished using a Fairlight Computer Video Instrument visual synth to process the footage.

RVNG INTL will release FRKWYS Vol 12: We Know Each Other Somehow by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe & Ariel Kalma on April 14.

Tracklisting:

1. Magick Creek
2. Mille Voix
4. Gongmo Kalma Lowe
4. Strange Dreams
5. Wasp Happening
6. Miracle Mile