Severin Black & Owen Pratt - Duet (2024)

Severin Black and Owen Pratt explore the rhythms within earth-borne sounds on their debut LP, following on from their Untitled cassette that birthed the Archaic Vaults label in 2020. These seven tracks exist both as duets and as momentary respite from the isolation both musicians faced during the pandemic. Ritual routine visits across two years of solitude. Long nights spent in dim lighting as negronis gradually dilute in the heat. Much of this album was recorded amidst a backdrop of townships with murky histories of sectarian religious conflict, labour shortages and abandoned properties, against the common notion of southern France solely as a tourist destination.

A duet can imply certain rules of engagement. Not all recordings on this album, however, are a duet between two people. VII (Black Metal) consists of two microphones left to surveil the streets below a third floor window, feeding directly into magnetic tape deeper in the recesses. IX (Snares) is an improvised dance between a bass amplifier’s sub frequencies and an activated snare drum. II (Subterranean River) captures limbs as they shift the gravel terrain below a weary cavernous stream. The recordist turns performer, the environment becomes performer too. Either could and often does serve as a duelling partner amongst these documentations.

Each edition has been hand painted by Shaan Bevan using powdered iron and seawater collected in the southernmost region of France where half of the album was recorded, and applied to the whole edition as one giant canvas.