OUT NOW digitally: Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer's Recordings from the Åland Islands (IA11 Edition) // LP in stores September 12th
Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer
Recordings from the Åland Islands
(IA11 Edition)
out NOW all digital music platforms
LP in stores September 12th
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."
In anticipation of the vinyl release on September 12th, a new IA11 Edition digital version of the album is out on all music platforms today, with the addition of three digital-only bonus tracks. "ÅRTV 682019" is material from a live performance in 2019 at Kumlinge Church of the Åland Islands, and includes excerpt of a radio interview on Åland Radio from August 6, 2019. "Crossings" is additional material from that 2019 performance at Kumlinge Church. "On the Other Sea (Live Edit from Brownswood Basement)" was recorded in 2024 at Gilles Peterson's broadcast studio in London, UK.
IA11 Liner Notes
by Sean Pecknold
Along with today's digital release, we've published Sean Pecknold's liner notes for the Åland Islands IA11 Edition on our website. An excerpt:
"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."
Deluxe Vinyl Package
The IA11 vinyl LP edition of Recordings from the Åland Islands comes on a Classic black 140-gram vinyl LP inside a heavyweight reverse-board jacket, with a 16-page 11x11" insert booklet (new for IA11, with unpublished photos and new liner notes by filmmaker Sean Pecknold), IARC 2025 obi strip and printed poly-lined printed inner-sleeve.
...ICYMI...
Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer's
Different Rooms
On June 20th, 2025, we released Chiu & Honer's sophomore duo album Different Rooms, a collection of songs and musical motifs composed, edited, and collaged in the weeks between late 2024 and early 2025.
The album was called "an electronic world full of enlightened grandeur" by TIDAL, "as smooth and crystalline as a pool of soft pebbles" by Aquarium Drunkard, and "a carefully calibrated bricolage of live spontaneity and studio craft, bridged by two artists’ shared passions for process, collaboration, and the beauty of the mundane" by Pitchfork.
Presented along with the album was a visually stunning mini documentary by David Burkart, where Chiu and Honer go deeper into the making of and worlds around Different Rooms.
Watch the Different Rooms documentary here.
Purchase Different Rooms on vinyl LP, CD or Digital here.
Chiu & Honer
on tour
Following their Different Rooms album release performances in July, the duo have added a handful of dates this fall.
Saturday, October 18th - The Broad (w/ Tortoise)
- Los Angeles, CA
Monday, November 3rd - Falcon Bowl Hall (w/ Bitchin Bajas)
- Milwaukee, WI
Friday, November 14th - MOLK Factory
- Amsterdam NL
Saturday, November 22nd - Barbican Centre (w/ Tortoise)
- London UK
Sunday, January 25th - SFJAZZ Center
- San Francisco, CA
+ more TBA
...about...
IA11 Editions
Over the course of 2025 we are revisiting some of the most celebrated entries in our decade of releases with a series of *IA11 Edition* vinyl LPs. These revamped LP packages are all presented with new liner notes, new insert booklets, and the fresh 2025 redesign of our obi strip and dome logo. They are also set at a price point intended to make the albums more accessible than ever before.
The first three IA11 Edition LPs (purchase as a bundle here) were released on March 28th:
IARC0001LP11 Rob Mazurek - Alternate Moon Cycles (IA11 Edition)
order hereIARC0003LP11 Makaya McCraven - In The Moment (IA11 Edition)
order hereIARC0017LP11 Ben LaMar Gay - Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun (IA11 Edition)
order here
The second three IA11 Edition LPs (purchase as a bundle here) were released on June 27th:
IARC0009LP11 Jeff Parker - The New Breed (IA11 Edition)
order hereIARC0014LP11 Irreversible Entanglements - Irreversible Entanglements(IA11 Edition)
order hereIARC0033LP11 Carlos Niño & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson - Chicago Waves (IA11 Edition)
order here
The latest two IA11 edition LPs (purchase as a bundle here) will be released on September 12th
IMRC0023LP11 Angel Bat Dawid - The Oracle(IA11 Edition)
order here
IARC0053LP11 Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer -Recordings from the Åland Islands (IA11 Edition)
order here
...about IA11...
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.
We created an emblem for IA11 with a vibrating interpretation of a chrysanthemum as the central symbol. Aside from just loving the delicious golden nectar that comes from the leaves of this flower, for us, the image of the chrysanthemum resonates as a symbol of longevity and rejuvenation. Two of the driving intentions behind this IA11 effort.
Please stay tuned for more announcements about more special IA11 events and releases across 2025.
Visit the IA11 homepage.
11 of 11 @ Hungry Brain
Chicago
As part of the #IA11 celebration, we have been proud to present this special event series in Chicago, focusing on a different album from our catalog on the last Monday of every month across 2025 at the Hungry Brain. Each 11 of 11 event features deep listening of an album, followed by a small group of musicians performing an interpretation of that album.
The next 11 of 11 event, Monday July 28th, will feature a full listening to Carlos Niño & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson's duo album Chicago Waves (originally released June 2020), followed by a performance by BSA Gold (keyboard, flute) with Micah Collier (bass), and Frank Morrison (drums), as the musicians respond to and reinterpret the music of the album.
Get tickets for July 28th here; and stay tuned for details and lineups for future 11 of 11 events.
