Martha Skye Murphy and Maxwell Sterling have released a new collaborative EP titled Distance on Ground. Conceived as travel music, the project features two long-form improvisational tracks that are accompanied by an interactive website “where the listener can voyage in real time to and with the music in their chosen environment,” according to a press release. Listen to the project below.
“Distance On Ground began as a conversation where words were replaced by sound while Maxwell and I shared our interests in articulations of place and space within a long form medium,” Murphy explained in a statement. “We started recording almost immediately when we met. An organic and fluid movement between our instruments arose, my voice answering Maxwell’s rich double bass and vice versa. The wordless trance lasted for over 3 hours. We spoke like this again a few weeks later, documenting it all for a further 5 hours. Distance On Ground is the collaged result of our geographical discussions through music. Each time I listen to 86 km and 93.3 km they reveal themselves differently to me as another site, path or direction is exposed.”
Sterling added: “These recording sessions with Martha were such a tonic after isolation and lack of playing music live. There’s something deeply healing in the music that came from these sessions, something closer to a live performance for me. The interplay and sonic relationship between voice and double bass is something that I love to explore, and with Martha’s vocal dexterity and subtle processing, it felt like a very natural combination from the start.”
Last year, Martha Skye Murphy released a triptych called Concrete. Sterling issued his latest project Turn of Phrase last spring.
