Passepartout Duo have released their debut LP Vis-à-Vis on the new Beijing-based experimental music label AnyOne. The group is comprised of pianist Nicoletta Favari and percussionist Christopher Salvito. The pair combines travel, recording, and performance into an aesthetic nexus meant to challenge the ways we listen to and connect with music.
Favari and Salvito report Vis-à-Vis was written and recorded in Geneva, Shanghai, and Beijing during a month-long train journey between Switzerland and China. Additionally, the duo created instruments from scrap wood and metal that they collected on the streets in Geneva. These portable sonic creations were then combined with keyboards, synths, and percussion during performance and recording as the pair traveled across Europe and Central Asia.
Vis-à-Vis is comprised of two long-form tracks, each taking up a side on the debut LP. Meant to mirror each other, the two compositions employ similar material subtly reshaped over time using hocket techniques and metric modulations to realign the elements into constantly shifting prismatic patterns.
The new Beijing-based art company and record label AnyOne, run by Yannis Zhang and Yumo Wu, follow suit with album artwork that can be reshuffled to reveal newly emerging geometric forms. Comprised of multiple superimposed layers of cut and printed paper, the company’s design is the perfect visual equivalent for Passepartout Duo’s continuously evolving sound forms.
