International Anthem
The Eleventh Year
Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer
Recordings from
the Åland Islands
IA11 Edition
Recordings from the Åland Islands, the 2022 duo debut by synthesist Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer, is a truly unique series of pieces that marry acoustic and electronic sounds with field recordings, all captured on a trip to the titular Baltic archipelago. Its release signaled another turning point for International Anthem, presenting a fresh take on the collage-based music that had become such a signature facet of the label's catalog while also establishing a close relationship with two artists who have since become pillars of the label's community.
That relationship started with mutual friends and years spent on the Chicago music scene, but fully blossomed after Chiu and Honer had already relocated to Los Angeles, where they would become critical builders of IARC's bridge between the two cities. By the time Åland Islands was coming to fruition, Honer had already written, performed and recorded strings with Makaya McCraven and Daniel Villarreal, but this project brought her to the front as a lead artist in her own right. Åland Islands was the label's first collaboration of any kind with Chiu, who has since released the solo outing In Electric Time and the genre-breaking debut of his co-led supergroup SML, in addition to a trio album with Honer and the late Ariel Kalma (2024’s The Closest Thing to Silence), and copious album art and sundry visual work for IARC from his graphic design chair (including the now-annual publication Tracing the Lines). And that’s not even mentioning Chiu & Honer’s sophomore duo album Different Rooms, which was released in June 2025 to wide critical acclaim.
Recordings from the Åland Islands is far more than its context within the world of IARC, however, and it’s certainly more than its context as a travel document. Here Chiu and Honer have created a new world out of an old one with work that sees them in dialogue with their own source material. Like early masterpieces by Franco Battiato or Alvin Lucier, the album repeatedly presents the listener with a palpable sense of place, only to pluck them up and drop them into an entirely new one.
Filmmaker Sean Pecknold, who accompanied Chiu and Honer on their first trip to the Åland Islands, sums things up beautifully in his liner notes for the IA11 Edition of the album: "Along with their music, they recorded field sounds of the island: the murmurings of our friends, the birds at dusk, an organ inside an ancient church, the hum of bike tires rolling across soft gravel, the Finnish PA announcement on the afternoon ferry. Every sound they threaded into their compositions became a countermelody to the fluttery layers of synthesizer and haunting strings. They were starting to define a new texture, a new tone, a new vision."
The IA11 Edition LP features our IARC 2025 obi strip, plus a new 16-page 11x11" insert booklet with unpublished photos from the recordings, new liner notes by Sean Pecknold, and an in-depth conversation between Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer.
Out August 21, 2025
Available on LP/Digital via our Bandcamp page
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Written, performed, and produced by Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer.
Recorded in various locations on the Åland Islands.
Jeremiah Chiu – piano, organs, modular synthesizer, Crumar Performer, Juno-60, CS01, OP-1, bass guitar, and field recordings.
Marta Sofia Honer – viola, Crumar Performer, and hand chimes.
Processing on "In Åland Air" by John McEntire.
Additional field recordings on "Stureby House Piano," "Voices," and "By Foot By Sea" by Sean Pecknold.
Flute on "Archipelago" by Stephen Honer.
Edited and arranged in Kumlinge, Chama, and Los Angeles.
Mixed by Jeremiah Chiu, Dave Vettraino, and Regina Martinez at International Anthem Studios, Chicago.
Mastered by David Allen in Portland.
Cover image by Joyce Kim.
Verso images by Marta Sofia Honer.
Layout by Jeremiah Chiu.Thank you: Sage and Jannika Reed, Scottie McNiece, Dave Vettraino, David Allen, Airi Pettersson, Nina Carlsson, Johann from Seglinge, the Department for Åland Education and Cult Kumlinge Ungdomsforening, S:ta Anna Kyrka, Sean Pecknold, Adi Goodrich, Joyce Kim, Andrew Bruntel, Jeff Desom, Sage Price, Anabella Casanova, Ben Babbitt, Celia Hollander, Booker Stardrum, Takako Minekawa, Dustin Wong, Sam Prekop, Ken Zawacki, Charlie Vinz, Monica Rezman.
Special thanks to The Hotel Svala.
INFO ON DIGITAL-ONLY BONUS TRACKS:
"ÅRTV 682019" is material from a live performance in 2019 at Kumlinge Church. Includes excerpt of radio interview on Åland Radio on August 6, 2019.
"Crossings" material from a live performance in 2019 at Kumlinge Church.
"On the Other Sea" (Live Edit from Brownswood Basement) was recorded at Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Basement studio in London, UK, 2024.
Recordings from
the Åland Islands
Liner Notes by Sean Pecknold
Introduction
Adi and I said: “No. We can’t make the trip after all.” Spring had become overwhelming with deadlines, stress, and the whirlwind of the busy season. But Jeremiah and Marta invited us to dinner in LA to talk us back into it. They served us Swedish meatballs from IKEA and said: “Are you sure? This trip could be a week you’ll actually remember.”
Our dear friend Sean Pecknold, a Los Angeles-based filmmaker and animator, was one of seven to journey with us to the Åland Islands in 2017.
We invited Sean to write the liner notes for this reissue of Recordings from the Åland Islands because he was an integral part of the album-making process, having contributed several field recordings captured on our trip.
The recordings captured—as we have discussed over the years since the album’s release—were never recorded with the express intent to become music, but instead, were a way to capture a sonic portrait of our time. What’s wonderful about Sean is that he has this singular ability to be intensely present—always observant and connected to the pulse of life. Yet he knows exactly when to press record.
Jeremiah & Marta
At Hotel Svala (left to right) Jeremiah Chiu, Marta Sofia Honer, Sage Reed, Sage Price, Adi Goodrich, Andrew Bruntel, Sean Pecknold.
So a week later, we were on a Wow Airlines flight, slurping Cup-O-Noodles, part of a ragtag group of seven flying halfway around the world to help two friends renovate an old hotel on the remote and tiny island of Kumlinge in the Finnish archipelago of Åland.
We landed in Stockholm, groggy and jet-lagged, heads drifting off and snapping awake. Sage and Jannika picked us up in an old Volvo 240 wagon and we set off, winding through stretches of rolling green hills to the ferry dock. The ride to Kumlinge was slow and dreamlike. An old wood-paneled ferry boat glided between scattered islands. We pressed our faces to the round windows and watched the world drift by. We were entering a different rhythm. Our tempo slowed down. Our minds opened up.
We disembarked and followed a narrow country road through pine groves, red farmhouses, and open fields with more sheep than people. Kumlinge has only about 320 year-round residents, so we stood out. A few locals watched us pass; some waved, others didn’t care.
Down a dusty gravel road, we finally reached Hotel Svala. Mid-renovation, wholly charming. Once a small island hospital, its long mid-century halls and rooms still held the hum of island stories. Now, at the hands of Sage and Jannika, it was being reimagined into something new, revitalized, and ready for new people, new sounds, new dreams.
Sure, we were there to help our friends with sanding, painting, and moral support. But Jeremiah and Marta, the sonic adventurers they are, had packed their preferred musical toolkit: a bag of microphones, a few synths, a viola, and an open mind. Slowly, the place began to stir. Sounds emerged. They listened, followed, and let the island lead them toward something new and exciting.
Beyond the daily work, they spent their free time wandering, improvising, and recording, trying to capture and amplify the island’s chorus. Some afternoons I would find them inside the old pool house. Jeremiah sat at a microphone and laptop, Marta stood in the empty pool with her viola beneath a shaft of light, drawing out slow, resonant notes. The sound echoed off the concrete, wood, and glass.
Along with their music, they recorded field sounds of the island: the murmurings of our friends, the birds at dusk, an organ inside an ancient church, the hum of bike tires rolling across soft gravel, the Finnish PA announcement on the afternoon ferry. Every sound they threaded into their compositions became a countermelody to the fluttery layers of synthesizer and haunting strings. They were starting to define a new texture, a new tone, a new vision.
Meanwhile, we were all enjoying the simpler rhythms of daily life. Filling up a gas can, jumping into the sea from a very tall dock, painting the ceiling in the old library, meeting a sheep farmer, touring the local elementary school, taking a sauna, and borrowing old bikes from a man who had 300 of them in a barn (one for every man, woman, and child on the island).
Later, we biked across a small land bridge to the neighboring island of Snacko. Not a car or person in sight. The world was ours alone. We sat beside a massive rock quarry on the side of the road and watched the sun hang in endless magic-hour light thinking: “Can real life be like this?”
A day trip on a small boat, touring the islands. (clockwise from the left) Michael, Sage, Anabella, Adi, Sean, Jeremiah, Marta, Andrew, Sage, Jannika. Photo by Andrew Bruntel.
We took photos of all of this, of course. But no image does the moment justice. Sound is a more faithful keeper of memory. So I recorded some of my own field sounds over the week and promised to send them to Jeremiah and Marta in case they could use them. But the sounds and the days of the week were winding down, and soon we were saying our goodbyes to Jannika and Sage. They were grateful for the help and the company, and we were grateful for such a revelatory and energizing week in this enchanted foreign land.
Right after we arrived at our bnb in Stureby, Stockholm, tired, disoriented, and not even sure what time it was, we all slumped into the living room. Jeremiah wandered over to the piano and began to play, drifting across the keys, feeling his way through something unprepared. When he finally lifted his hands, he smiled. “Dang, that was nice. We should record that,” he said. I replied: “I did buddy. I just did. Just thank me in the liner notes.”
Most weeks slip by in a blur of repetition: errands, obligations, moments that do not linger. But when you travel somewhere distant and new, time stretches out. It slows. It deepens. And in that space, you are reminded of what matters: the unfamiliar, common purpose, the act of making something new. A week like that does not disappear after it is lived. It reverberates.
Jeremiah and Marta’s Recordings From The Åland Islands became, for me, a transcendent archive of a place between eras. A place where normal life paused, time softened, and everything vibrated with fullness and clarity. It captures that feeling of transience, of longing, and of nostalgia. It’s the sound of riding a ferry across a cold blue sea, watching your past dissolve in the wake, while your future drifts on a northern wind over the bow and whispers: “Thank you for saying yes.”
Are you, reader, sitting there, considering a similar trip or artistic endeavor? You might be busy. Sure, we all are. But consider again: a momentary break from the days that vanish as soon as they are done might bend your path toward something unexpected, new, or lasting, like the dusk light of an endless summer night.
And if you would rather not, that is okay. At least, you have this record.
Sean Pecknold
Los Angeles, California, May 2025
Photography
by Joyce Kim
Kumlinge
Åland Islands
1 View from a ferry window
2 Small harbor on Kumlinge
3 Guest suite at Hotel Svala
Hotel Svala
1 Hotel Svala from the field
2 Marta & Jeremiah in the Suite
In
Conversation
Hotel Svala
from the field
Maybe you can start back in 2017 to contextualize the project. As you remember, this was not exactly a trip to make an album, but instead to help a friend and her mother barn raise a small hotel.
Marta
Right, of course. I can never just simply go on a trip or vacation without turning it into a project! (laughs)
So, Sage (Reed) had mentioned that she and her mother, Jannika (Reed), decided to rehab a small, 20-room hotel on Kumlinge, in the Åland Islands— a place familiar to them as her mother had grown up nearby. For me, it seemed like an easy excuse for us to travel to Scandinavia, work on something, and explore a new place— one where the summer sun never sets. I also quite liked the idea of (long-term) developing an artist residency, workshop program, or network that bridged a relationship between Los Angeles/U.S. and the islands.
Jeremiah
Marta
I remember us looking up “Kumlinge” on the map and zooming so far in to this tiny island on the Baltic Sea, in between Finland and Sweden. I think we were both surprised to discover the scale of the archipelago— 6,500+ islands—that neither of us had heard of before.
Yes, exactly. And in talking through the travel logistics with Sage, the journey to the islands would require a flight, to a ferry, to a car, to a ferry, and soon.
Thinking back to that initial invitation I sent out to our friends here in L.A.— let's travel together for two weeks to an unknown destination to help someone you may not know create something special— I'm kind of surprised we pulled it off, twice! It was a huge ask for anyone, but for me, this is what it's all about. Thanks for trusting me, or at least humoring the trip.
Jeremiah
Marta & Jeremiah
in the Suite
Recordings from the Åland Islands
It didn't sound as bad as you're leading on— you were really selling it! (laughs) My only hesitation was that we— the group— hadn't traveled together before, some of us didn't know each other.
Marta
Right, I forget that now. I was sharing a studio with Sean (Pecknold) and Adi (Goodrich) at the time, but didn't really know Andy (Bruntel), Sage (Price), or Anabella (Casanova). I guess it was really Sean and Adi's shared enthusiasm that amped this all up.
The weeks spent there were amazing. While we were collectively consumed by the sheer amount of work it would take to start rehabbing and designing a space, we all saw the potential of what it could be. I think we all liked the idea of playing some role in making this place— The Hotel Svala— a special experience for artists and guests to visit in the future.
And to think that the same basic premise happened again in 2019 with Joyce (Kim), Jeff (Desom), and Monica (Rezman). I guess the second trip had many less unknowns.
Jeremiah
Drifting slowly on a ferry past all of those small islands— some with just a single house on them— is such a distinct memory. The islands are incredibly peaceful— it feels very distant from everything— existing on its own time. I had never experienced the midnight sun before, with that lingering glow on our late-night bike rides, the sun hovering along the horizon for hours. It gave us space to wander, to listen and reflect. I think you can hear this sense of time in the recordings.
Marta
Yes. The spirit of the place was such an inspiration to the way we were approaching how to edit and mix this record. Time, specifically, is one of the more interesting aspects of the album as the recordings are assembled from a variety of places— voice memos, field recordings, improvisations, formal performances— manipulated, chopped, sequenced, and collaged together to form the compositions.
In a lot of ways, this record is unlike something that we would produce if we had set out with a distinct vision to capture. There's a documentary aspect to it, though it's not about nostalgia or memory, so much as it is about transporting or providing you with an experience in your present time and space.
We brought our instruments, knowing that we would have the opportunity to explore, but that was it. It was only after listening back to everything in separate pieces— and having time away from the material— that allowed the music to find its own form.
Jeremiah
Windmill on
Kumlinge
Our trip back in 2019 gave us some good momentum as the grant from the Department for Åland Education and Cult Kumlinge Ungdomsforening gave us an opportunity to stage a concert and collect more recordings. This trip was definitely more focused on recording, writing, and producing an album. It also gave us an opportunity to revisit some of the more special moments in the recordings— like the pipe organ at S:ta Anna Kyrka, or playing viola in the empty swimming pool at the hotel.
When we were working on the final mixes, it made sense to work solely from the captured, improvised recordings— rather than overdub new parts— because you can hear the air in the recordings, the people in the room. It also led to me experiment with the viola recordings through a granular sampler to create new moments from the same source. There's a nice tension between hearing what is improvised and what is manipulated. In a lot of moments in the final mix, it's hard to distinguish what's played and what's edited.
Marta
Jeremiah
I love that aspect in a lot of my favorite records— not exactly knowing how something was created, less 1:1. And while these recordings are often at a very slow pace, there's quite a lot of activity and focus, it's not something I would consider ambient, but that I hope lives as just contemporary music— improvised, experimental, collaged, music.
Photo by Charlie Weinmann
Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer
About
The LA-based duo of synthesist Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer have spent years refining a masterful interplay of acoustic and electronic sounds, both in live performance and across three albums for International Anthem: 2022’s Recordings from the Åland Islands, 2023’s The Closest Thing to Silence (in collaboration with legendary French musician Ariel Kalma), and 2025’s Different Rooms.
International Anthem
The Eleventh Year
On December 2nd, 2024, we marked the ten-year anniversary of our first release.
With a full decade under our belt – ten years of commitment to a growing community of artists, and our original mission statement ("to vitalize demand for boundary defying music," among other things) – we've spent a lot of time thinking about how we'd like to celebrate this milestone. What we keep coming back to is: desire to use this opportunity to revisit and revivify music and memories from our first decade; but keeping true to our ethos of always looking forward, all the way.
In that spirit, across 2025, we'll be rolling out a series of releases and events under the IA11 banner. Celebrating our eleventh year. Doing our best to retell essential, foundational stories from our past, while keeping our hearts and minds fixed on the present. Trying to establish new standards that can help carry our mission through another decade of work – and hopefully more.
Stay tuned for releases and news.