Between - Low Flying Owls (2023)

Between is a rotating collective of artists that began in 2012 one night at old ryokan in Kyoto, Japan. It is collaboration that brings artists, stories and memories together acutely distilling the essence of 12k’s mission and aesthetics into one project.

The seeds of Low Flying Owls were sown in early 2022 when Taylor Deupree and Stephen Vitiello set up a small studio at a beach house in Florida. With a view of the sea they crafted long form sonic foundations of guitars and electronics and envisioned their expansion with other instruments and players from the 12k family. Throughout the next couple of months recordings from the other artists were made, woven into the timeline and the pieces began to take shape. Contributions from Molly Berg, Corey Fuller, Marcus Fischer, Federico Durand and Michael Grigoni rounded out the roster. 7 artistic minds and a wonderful range of instruments including voice, clarinets, drums, piano, guitars, found objects, and field recordings.

Low Flying Owls, (the title a spontaneous sighting that became a marker to the time and place of the project) creates an expansive and undulating sonic landscape. Punctuated by Marcus Fischer’s drum tracks that push the release into unexpected directions it eschews old comfort zones, while always keeping the space of each collaborator in careful balance with the rest. Seven voices on equal ground with eyes and ears on a distant horizon.

The song titles were culled from a poem about hands which became the launching point for the project visuals. In addition to the CD release there is an accompanying 46-page book that features collage work by Marcus Fischer. Photographs were collected from each artist including objects, instruments and each of their hands. During the album production not all of the musicians were together in the same studio space and the collage became a way to create that shared space in which they all inhabited. Fischer’s collage work was done physically, photos and objects laid out and photographed rather than digitally assembled, an important working method in order to capture the depth, shadows and imperfections, tying the visual work into the rich sound of the album.