why we love this

Curious explorations of percussion, piecing together scrapes, splashes, and thuds into a playful, constantly shifting mosaic.

about the cassette

Jannis Carbotta and Cristian Subirà first crossed paths in 2018, but the story of this album begins six years later, in March 2024. Cristian was passing through Köln during a small tour and reached out to Jannis with an unexpected proposal: while in town, they could grab some microphones, do a bit of field recording, and see what might come of it. With no expectations, just curiosity, they dove in.

And when one is humble and free of thought, things happen on their own. A fortuitous encounter with a huge, long metal pipe found on the riverbank of the Rhine, and its subsequent exploration, led to several conclusions: they should approach studio recording using tools typically reserved for fieldwork, and this collaboration, still undefined, should continue in person, whenever and wherever that might be.

By a twist of fate, Cristian was invited to another concert soon afterward, and the two met again several months later along the way to continue exploring their intuition: recording percussion using hydrophones inside various containers filled with water, with a range of different materials interacting. Once again, the unexpected played a crucial role. They agreed to meet one more time, in February 2025, this time in Barcelona, where the album came to completion in a different setting.

Unexpected Percussion reveals an intermittent project born from a need to mature creative processes, free from the pressure of immediacy or the back-and-forth of constant messaging. A space where boundaries are not fixed but fluid, allowing for a dynamic interplay of concepts and elements. Where the unfinished converses with the resolved. Where the bonds forged through the process matter most. And where, even in uncertainty, fertile ground for discovery can be found.