How did we spend 2020? With the turning of the new year, we wanted to create a small reflection on these past six months that took us from July 2020 to today. Alongside so many others, our plans for 2020 were completely uprooted, replaced with improvised solutions that were nonetheless full of music, people, and travel.

In July, when our papers in China were just near their expiration, with practically no sanely-priced flights to be found, we finally managed to fly from Beijing to Hong Kong in the eleventh hour, a transition that was bittersweet. We were leaving behind projects, friends, and temporary homes in the country we knew for the last eight months, but there’s always a certain excitement to be moving on to somewhere new.

Hong Kong’s tracking wristbands for those in quarantine

At that time, we needed to quarantine for 14 days in a really strict manner: tracking wristbands affixed at the airport, we couldn’t leave our hotel room for any reason, and relied on food delivery and instant ramen confined to a 8m² space. Those two weeks are a bit of a blur. We kind of felt like astronauts who after arriving back to earth from the moon, stayed locked away, waiting to reenter society, just in case they had brought back with them a horrible moon virus. On our fourteenth day, as soon as midnight struck, we left our room straight onto Nathan Road, completely full of people, traffic, and street vendors.

That month in Hong Kong was spent exploring the city, meeting with new and old friends, and doing a small recording at HKBU with composer Vanissa Law. A super long day spent on Lantau island was the absolute highlight.

Even toward the end of our stay in Hong Kong, it was unclear if we would be able to travel to our next stop, Italy. Again at the last minute, with many phone calls to embassies, airlines, and local bureaucracies, we managed to make the trip. There was another quarantine waiting for us in Italy, but this one was distinctly different; the slow pace of life pervades even in the quarantine, and it was a real joy to eat some proper Italian food for the first time that year, and to catch up on all the work that slips by in a busy city like Hong Kong.

It wasn’t clear how long we would stay in Italy after our arrival, and we knew we wanted to make the most of our time there despite the pandemic.

The Dolomites

We wanted to capture field recordings with a special focus on the Rifugi, small mountain huts that accept visitors for both food and rest. These huts connect a large network of paths through the mountains, filled with beautiful scenery exemplified by large pale peaks. Natural beauty is almost always directly linked to the sights we see: beautiful vistas, and mountain views. Instead, we wanted to put a special emphasis on the sounds around us.

The route we took through the mountains connects several of these rifugi. Starting from Val di Fassa, we hiked through Rifugio Gardeccia, Rifugio Vajolet, Rifugio Passo Principe, Rifugio Antermoia, and Rifugio Dona. Each of these places brought with it all the unique features of its natural surroundings. Whether it’s higher or lower in altitude, it might be nestled between trees, or built into the facade of the mountain itself. Steeped in the long cultural history of the Alps, food and hospitality are also part of the unique thumbprint of each rifugio.

Exploring Pietrasanta’s Marble Quarries

*Performing at La Polveriera in Pietrasanta*

On the invitation of Contemporary Matters, we performed at a small marble studio called La Polveriera in Pietrasanta. Located on the coast of Tuscany, the city has a long history of working with marble, that can be traced back centuries. After presenting some new music for the first time, we explored the marble quarries with local artist Nicolas Bertoux as our guide. The quarries are among the most strangely beautiful places we’ve been. Our field recordings there focused on the quarries’ massive echos.

Spazio Piera in Trento

About Splintered Landscapes

We had a short residency in Trento, with Spazio Piera, a local space that hosts cultural events and artists’ exhibitions. The field recordings we’d collected in these unique places came together in a project we’ve called Splintered Landscapes. We’ve filmed a small video to explain the process of this piece, that results in tape cassettes with hundreds of small splices.

A remote exhibition in Shanghai

All this time in Italy, we were still keeping our connection with China alive through an online residency at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. There, we gave lectures and presented our One Meter Per Minute series of works for the first time.

New Instruments

A huge project of ours began to take its roots during this long introspective work period. We’ve been focusing on creating new instruments that connect analogue synthesizer circuits with textile artworks for about a year now. During our time in Italy, we’ve created three new textile instruments, that are the basis for a new album project. As part of these textile creations, we went straight to the sheep farmers to learn about harvesting, carding, dying, and felting wool. We’ve also continued to deepen our understanding of the underlying analogue circuits that make these synthesizers work. This is still going to be one of our main focuses in 2021, and we’re looking forward to sharing it with you.

We can’t wait to start traveling again

It’s been both a blessing and a curse to stay hunkered down in Italy for a ‘long time’ (by Passepartout standards). We’ve gotten a lot done artistically, so much so that we’ve coined a new term for ourselves: “slow music”. It means taking creative agency over the entire process of making music, from instrument creation to recording. We’ve definitely gained a larger appreciation for a more intensively introverted workflow.

At the same time, we cannot wait to begin performing, meeting new people, and seeing new places again. Those things are all the catalysts from which our most fulfilling artistic experiences have formed, and to only share our music and projects online has definitely been a challenge. We can’t wait to see what 2021 brings!