Martina Berther and Philipp Schlotter return to Hallow Ground with their second collaborative album since 2023’s stringent exercise in drone minimalism, »Matt.« »Silence Will Never Die« was recorded at the same church in the Canton of Glarus that lent its name to the duo’s debut. Once more the Church of Matt’s organ plays a significant role on these five pieces that navigate between composition and improvisation. However, the two prolific musicians aimed for an even more diverse sonic and stylistic palette. They brought new instruments into the fold to record an album that marries subtlety with complexity, the ephemeral with corporality. These five pieces are »auditive microcosms that carry a calm but concentrated energy within them, that are repetitive and result from our bodies’ movements,« as Schlotter and Berther put it. »Silence Will Never Die« is as ethereal as it is visceral.
The two prolific musicians use their joint project to ask fundamental questions. The conceptual underpinnings of »Silence Will Never Die« emerged from improvisations and conversations between them. »How can we recharge our batteries so that we can contribute to society with as much positive energy as possible?« became their leading question, and the pair utilised more means than before to formulate musical answers to it. Within a more complex recording set-up than on »Matt,« both played the church organ as well as synthesizers, with Berther also working with her electric bass and Schlotter playing the zither. This allowed them to enrich their overall sound both sonically and stylistically while also perfectly complementing the duo’s careful attention to detail and knack for making subtle shifts that feel larger than life.