Sunroof – the all-modular duo of Daniel Miller and Tonmeister Gareth Jones – have announced Volume 3 of their Electronic Music Improvisations series. The album will be released on vinyl, CD and digitally via the Parallel Series of Mute on 29 November 2024.
A missive from Mute tells us:
Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 3 is a collection of nine improvised tracks, recorded using the duo’s Eurorack modular systems, and builds upon the self-imposed parameters laid out on their 2021 debut. With nothing pre-planned or rehearsed, each of the nine tracks were recorded using four channels (two each) with no overdubs. Explaining that, “Our practice is more abstract than thematic. Every time we meet, we attempt a fresh start,” Miller and Jones arrived to each recording session with the spirit, energy and discipline of improvisation and recorded the tracks as live performances, with very little post-production work done once the tracks are recorded.
One exception is on ‘Ensnare’. The original, where glassy percussion works alongside submerged rhythmic beats, has been given two separate remixes by Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones, allowing listeners a glimpse into their very different but intrinsically intertwined processes.
Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones have been collaborating for four decades. Although neither dwell on their past work, preferring to constantly explore new ways to create, Miller and Mute’s legacy is given a nod on ‘Splendid’ which opens with the distinct hiss of analogue tape over a rhythmic heart beat before oscillators burst and collide. This track was recorded using the original 4-track TEAC that Miller picked up second hand in the late 70s and used to record The Normal’s Warm Leatherette 7”.
Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones’ collaboration began in 1982 when Miller asked Jones to work with him on what became Depeche Mode’s Construction Time Again. After Depeche Mode had gone home for the day, the two would stay on to work on their own sessions, a practise that continues to this day. By the mid-nineties Sunroof had become a remix project, reworking the likes of Can, MGMT, To Rococo Rot, Kreidler and Goldfrapp, amongst others, and their first recordings appeared on a compilation paying tribute to Neu!
In 2019, Miller and Jones were heading to a György Ligeti concert at the Barbican and beforehand the pair spent a couple of hours improvising with modular systems. Unusually, this time they decided to record the session and over a pre-concert meal, Gareth asked, “Are we actually going to make a record together before we die?”
The resulting album, Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1 (2021) was followed by Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 2 (2023), and since 2021, Sunroof have been performing select live shows – at venues such as Café OTO (London), the London School of Economics, the Museum of Modern Electronic Music Frankfurt, Silent Green in Berlin, Ombra Festival (Barcelona), Oslo Cathedral, Golden Pudel (Hamburg), DG Kunstraum (Munich), and IKLECTIK (London) – allowing their live performance to feed back into their recordings. Some of these recordings were released last year as a Bandcamp exclusive, Electronic Music Improvisations Live in London and Frankfurt.