Announcing *Different Rooms* a new album by Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer // LP/CD/DD out June 20th, 2025
*announcing*
IARC0098
Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer
Different Rooms
LP, CD, DD out June 20th, 2025
It is our great pleasure to announce today: Different Rooms, a new album by the Los Angeles based duo of modular synthesist Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer, out June 20th, 2025. The album’s opener “Mean Solar Time” is available on all DSPs today as lead single; and the duo have announced three initial album release performances in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia in July.
Listen to “Mean Solar Time”
and preorder Different Rooms here.
(( photo by Colin Patrick Smith ))
Different Rooms finds Chiu and Honer returning to a collaboration that, with the March 2022 release of their critically-lauded duo debut Recordings from the Åland Islands, initiated an epically prolific run for both artists in their own rites. In the wake of performances to support Åland Islands, in 2023 Chiu toured the US opening for M83 and released the solo recording In Electric Time, an album of in-the-moment synth-based compositions captured on analog tape at LA’s Vintage Synthesizer Museum. During that time, Honer was busy doing strings and arrangements for recordings and performances by International Anthem artists Makaya McCraven and Daniel Villarreal; she also contributed viola to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, Kendrick Lamar’s GNX, and various projects with Adrian Younge’s Linear Labs Orchestra, among many others. Chiu and Honer worked together with Ariel Kalma on the three-way collaborative album The Closest Thing to Silence that released in early 2024, just months before the LA trance-jazz supergroup SML, which is co-led by Chiu, released their groundbreaking self-titled debut album. This protracted, two year run of activity and growth for the two musicians crescendoed into a moment of opportunity for them to conceptualize and compose the new duo work that would become Different Rooms.
Different Rooms collects songs and musical motifs composed, edited, and collaged by Chiu and Honer in the weeks between late 2024 and early 2025. Except for pieces composed from improvisations recorded with Jeff Parker and Josh Johnson in 2023 (heard on forthcoming singles “Side by Side” and “Different Rooms,” respectively), most of the ideas were initially developed during live performances on the duo’s fall 2024 EU tour, then fully realized when they returned to their home studios to record, arrange, and shape the music into album form in the beginning of 2025.
About the process, Chiu and Honer say: “This record marks an evolution in our approach to studio production. Our studios are side-by-side. When we were writing this album, you might have found us tracking viola stacks in one studio while, in the other, we were writing through-composed themes and rearranging the material. Granular synthesis and tape manipulation are key tools we use to create variation and movement in a composition. This process often yields surprising results, capturing the emotion but expressing it in unexpected ways. It feels essential that we embrace a bit of chance.”
Contrary to how Åland Islands – with its interwoven field recordings and atmospheric improvisations captured in the hyperreal landscapes of an archipelago in the Baltic Sea – completely transported listeners to another place, with Different Rooms, Chiu and Honer say “we want this music to meet you where you are.” It’s a decidedly urban album; field recordings still have a presence, but they come from scenes on train platforms, city streets, and rooms in their home, painting a quotidian sonic image that blurs the line between what the listener hears in their own environment and what is on the record.
The sonic and temporal abstraction between what is performed in real-time versus what is recorded, manipulated, and collaged is perfectly encapsulated in the album’s title Different Rooms, which literally refers to the fact that the material was recorded in different spaces, while figuratively reminding us that our shared experience of present time is one that is asynchronous, historied, and complex.
Listen to lead single “Mean Solar Time”
and preorder Different Rooms here.
(( photo by David Haskell ))
…about Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer…
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.
Drawing from their roots in Chicago's improvisational and experimental music scene, Chiu and Honer have crafted a unique sound, melding the distinctive tonal colors of viola and modular synthesizer into a cohesive and unexpected whole. It’s a singular aesthetic that can be delightfully disorienting, with arrangements being constructed and deconstructed in real time both improvisationally and via the duo’s extensive penchant for live-sampling. As Pitchfork put it: “you’re never quite sure if what you’re hearing is played ‘live’ or manipulated, and sounds keep darting over the porous border.”
The duo’s individual credits are similarly formidable. Chiu performs solo, collaboratively, and in the trance-jazz supergroup SML. His fluidity as a synthesist and improvisational arranger makes him an asset in nearly any live context—a skillset which easily translates to work in the studio. His solo album In Electric Time was recorded live at the Vintage Synthesizer Museum in LA and released on International Anthem in 2023. Chiu is also a sought-after graphic designer and visual artist with credits that include album layouts for Suzanne Ciani, Morton Subotnik, and Jeff Parker as well as print media work for Dublab, Lumpen Radio, and International Anthem. He has exhibited his visual work at The Getty Center, MOCA, and MCA Chicago, amongst others.
Honer is an active session player and live performer of all genres. She records regularly for film and television soundtracks, and can be found playing in a variety of ensembles including the Pacific Jazz Orchestra and Adrian Younge’s Linear Labs Orchestra. Her viola can be heard on recent records including Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and Kendrick Lamar’s GNX. Honer is also a go-to arranger and performer within the orbit of the International Anthem label, contributing strings to albums and performances by Makaya McCraven and Daniel Villarreal.
The duo's recent live activity includes a fall 2024 EU/UK tour with both headlining performances and support slots for Carl Stone and Arooj Aftab, as well as stateside appearances at the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Noon to Midnight new music festival and Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Deluxe Vinyl Package
Different Rooms features album cover art by Sam Prekop, and comes on a 140g LP in a heavyweight reverse-board jacket, with IARC 2025 obi strip & poly-lined inner sleeve. Pressed at Pallas in Germany, with lacquers cut by Daniel K @ SST.
Available on Limited Edition *Battiato Brick* Color vinyl for $29 USD.
Also available on Classic Black vinyl for $24 USD.
The SPRING ‘𝟮𝟱 𝗕𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗟𝗘 is now available !!
The Spring ‘25 Bundle collects the three new International Anthem LPs announced this season (IARC0096 Resavoir & Matt Gold - Horizon, IARC0097 Ben LaMar Gay - Yowzers, and IARC0098 Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer - Different Rooms) and ships them as a single parcel.
Purchase gets you a bundle-exclusive discount of 10% off the LP prices as well as a discounted shipping cost.
The bundle will ship from our warehouses in the US, EU, and UK, but don’t snooze, the quantity available in each warehouse is limited! Early purchase is recommended to ensure the lowest possible shipping, tax, and VAT costs.
All items will ship together in one package around June 13th. Bandcamp downloads will be sent via email for all the releases by, or before, the ship date.
Order the bundle on Limited Edition Color Vinyl
Order the bundle on Classic Black Vinyl
