SEAMUS CATER | voice, concertina, rhodes and harmonica
KAI FAGASCHINSKI | clarinet

After six years of secluded work, Seamus Cater and Kai Fagaschinski present their debut album, Secrets.

Their collaboration represents a collective process where all music was composed together in the same room. No advance sketches were used, no strategies established, every piece began with a basic exploration, asked a different logic and required its own form. A kind of proposal and counter proposal method was used, with pieces evolving through hours but also sometimes years, of combining tones and refining sounds.

While it may be impossible to file the compositions under genre headings, sparseness and clarity are apparent throughout. The ingredients are simple, a careful assembly sets them in motion and bestows them with unexpected purpose. The subtle end of storytelling liaises with abstraction and the elegant yet precise articulations might propose a form of modern court music. Secrets reflects the individual paths of Cater and Fagaschinski, but could only have been built in the space between them.

Seamus Cater composed for jazz groups in the UK, and after relocating to Amsterdam transitioned through electronic and experimental composition towards writing and performing songs. Since taking up the 'duet concertina', a kind of early Victorian accordion, currently confined to folk music, he finds the instrument's limited capabilities worthy of exploring outside folklore. On Secrets, he compliments voice and concertina with re-tuned harmonica and Rhodes piano.

Kai Fagaschinski, a steady character of the Berlin Echtzeitmusik movement, stepped into song music earlier with The Magic I.D.. He is also one half of The International Nothing, a duo which blends two clarinets into psycho-acoustic sculptures. With a delicate and strict approach he explores the hidden nooks and crannies of his chosen instrument. Fagaschinski's clarinet serves as the luscious and undulating sonic foundation of Secrets.