IARC0077

Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer

The Closest Thing To Silence

LP, CD & Digital album out Friday February 2nd, 2023

“warm and immersive, gorgeous but consistently moving and evolving."
-Treble Magazine

“Played alongside the contemporary improvised vision of his two foils, Kalma’s ideas reinvigorate and conjure up new horizons”
-Monolith Cocktail

"a metaphysical journey, blending hypnotic voicings with punchy synths and droney viola, transcending genres and passing the torch to the next generation of experimental musicians, Chiu and Honer."
- Acquarium Drunkard

Preview & Preorder
The Closest Thing To Silence

Album cover art by Will Work for Good & Some All None

In August 2022 the Australia-based, French born new age musician and electronic music composer Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists who have not previously worked together to create new music cooperatively

Kalma was quick to suggest working with two musicians whom he had never met – International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut Recordings from the Åland Islands had been released just a few months earlier. His invitation was received with enthusiasm, as Chiu had long been a fan of Kalma’s work, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition. Their initial work was broadcasted on Late Junction in September of 2022; but simultaneously, Kalma, Chiu and Honer began expanding their collaboration.

The three artists’ collective approach was born in improvisation and realized via collage-based editing. There are snippets of improvised playing from each musician, edited together with recordings that Kalma had made in the 70s at GRM, and even moments of audio notes — like Kalma explaining his ideas — that would make it into the final mixes.

Ultimately, the collection of music they created highlights the work of all three musicians, intertwining the kind of contextual immersion heard on Chiu & Honer’s duo work with an intergenerational reverence for (and the undeniable presence of) Kalma’s decades-spanning body of work. It is work that has definitively enshrined him as one of the true, transcendent pioneers and sages of new age and fourth-world music. That reverence is affirmed by the album title chosen by the group, which is taken from a quote by Kalma included in a documentary released by RVNG Intl, as part of the 2014 compendium/retrospective An Evolutionary Music. Perhaps coincidental, Kalma’s quote was a slight modulation of a legendary ECM Records motto, as he said: “Music is the closest thing to silence.”

Preview & Preorder The Closest Thing to Silence here.

Album Listening Party on Bandcamp

This Friday 2/2 is the worldwide release date for THE CLOSEST THING TO SILENCE by Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer. It's also BANDCAMP FRIDAY so we thought: why not go crazy and celebrate this glorious confluence with our first ever BC listening party??? Join us (along with these three wonderful artists) in the chat, we'll be chopping it up while soaking up this beautiful piece of music.

RSVP here.

((( good folks at **Harvest Records** in **Asheville NC** )))

Buy It IRL

Here is a list of record shops in the US & Canada that have confirmed they are stocking The Closest Thing To Silence for the album release date this Friday 2/2

(AL) Opelika - 10,000 Hz Records
(AZ) Phoenix - Zia Records
(CA) Los Angeles - Amoeba Music Hollywood
(CA) San Francisco - Amoeba Music San Fran
(CA) San Luis Obispo - Boo Boo Records
(CA) Ventura - Salzer's
(CO) Denver - Twist & Shout
(CO) Denver - Wax Trax's Broadway Bazaar
(FL) Miami - Sweat Records
(FL) Orlando - Park Ave. CD's
(IL) Chicago - 606 Records
(IL) Chicago - Dusty Groove Inc.
(IL) Chicago - Orbit Records
(IL) Chicago - Reckless Records Belmont
(IL) Chicago - Reckless Records Loop
(IL) Chicago - Reckless Records Wicker Park
(IN) Bloomington - Landlocked Music
(IN) Indianapolis - Indy CD and Vinyl
(IA) Iowa City - Record Collector Inc
(KS) Lawrence - Love Garden Sounds
(KY) Louisville - Guestroom Records
(LA) New Orleans - Euclid Records
(MD) Baltimore - Sound Garden
(MI) Dearborn - Dearborn Music
(MN) Minneapolis - Down in the Valley
(MN) Minneapolis - Electric Fetus
(MN) St Paul - Cheapo Discs
(MS) Oxford - The End of All Music (Oxford)
(MT) Missoula - Ear Candy Music
(NC) Asheville - Harvest Records
(NC) Durham - Chaz's Bull City Records
(NJ) Princeton - Princeton Record Exchange
(NY) NYC - Ergot Records
(NY) Livingston Manor - Jitterbug Sights & Sounds
(OH) Akron - Square Records
(OH) Dayton - Omega Music
(OR) Portland - Everyday Music
(OR) Portland - Green Noise Records
(OR) Portland - Music Millennium
(OR) Portland - Rainy Day Records
(TX) Austin - Breakaway Records
(TX) Austin - End of An Ear
(TX) Austin - Waterloo
(VT) Winooski - Autumn Records
(WA) Seattle - Hex Enduction Records & Books
(WA) Seattle - Neptoon Records
(WA) Seattle - Royal Records
(WA) Seattle - Sonic Boom Records-WA
(WA) Olympia - Rainy Day Records
(WA) Wallingford - Redscroll Records
(QC) Montreal - Atom Heart
(QC) Montreal - Encore Records
(QC) Montreal - Le Backstore
(QC) Montreal - Le Vacarme
(QC) Montreal - Phonopolis
(QC) Montreal - Sonorama Disques
(ON) Hamilton - Into The Abyss
(ON) Kingston - Something Else Records

~~ also available ~~

Inputs & Outputs

Included in the recently-released issue #2 of our newsprint zine Tracing the Lines is an unfiltered conversation between legendary musician (of Galaxie 500 fame) and UMAW (Union of Musicians and Allied Workers) organizer Damon Krukowski and International Anthem artists Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer.

Although it was originally intended to be a conversation about the realities of doing creative work for a living within the current layout of the music business (per the prompt from zine editor David Brown), the three artists took a fairly immediate and permanent detour into deep discussions of their respective creative processes and artistic approaches.

The conversation - which earned the natural title "Inputs & Outputs" - is now available in the online version of Tracing the Lines.

Read it here.

*Deluxe Vinyl Package*

*** Silent Gray color vinyl ***

The Closest Thing to Silence comes on a 140-gram vinyl LP (pressed by Pallas in Germany and New Orleans Record Press in the US, with lacquers cut by Daniel K at SST) inside a heavyweight jacket, with IARC obi strip and dome patterned inner-sleeve.

And, as always, we have a limited edition color vinyl option for the first pressing only, available via our Bandcamp page only, which is 444 copies of *Silent Gray* color vinyl.

Order a copy via our Bandcamp page today!

Distribution via RedEye for USA, Canada, North & South America

This album will also be available on CD (in a deluxe 4-panel digipack) and Classic Black Vinyl LP (same package specs as listed above).

Retailers in the United States or Canada or anywhere else inside of North, South and Central America... Please reach out to your sales rep at RedEye Worldwide if you are interested in making wholesale purchases of this album, or any other album in our catalog. Don't yet have a RedEye rep? Please just reach out to us and we'll get you hooked up!

Distribution via !K7 for Europe, UK, Australia, Japan, and ROW

This album will be distributed by our good friends at !K7 and their various territory partners in Europe, UK, Australia, Japan, and everywhere else in the world outside of North & South America.

If you are a retailer or store with questions about wholesale or are just looking to get some of our records... we'd like to make things as easy for you as possible, please do not hesitate to reach out!!!