Swedish-Finnish composer/sound artist Marja Ahti and Australian cellist/composer Judith Hamann developed Portals collaboratively from their respective lockdown spaces in Finland, sending recordings back and forth across the eastern most arm of the Baltic sea from Turku to Suomenlinna. Their lines of acoustic & electronic sound pull each other through different composite terrains, revealing imaginary scenery and creating a palimpsest of geographies and time. Akin to film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky's focus “on the pressure of time", Marja and Judith give weight to each frame of sound’s internal narrative, letting each move slowly from land to island, sea to forest, mundane to remarkable, domestic to public, as if caught in dream motion. As the title suggests, the release offers frames, or windows into Marja and Judith's combined hearing, into spaces they've created together during this time: simultaneously near and distanced.

Marja Ahti / electronics, magnetic tape, field recordings
Judith Hamann / cello, field recordings

With thanks to HIAP Suomenlinna for providing Judith with safe harbour this spring.

Cover design by Oli Barrett