recordings from the åland islands
In 2017 Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer and a group of amazing friends came to help us start renovating the hotel. In the midst of construction, excursions, fishing, painting, and making midsummer crowns field recordings were made. Our great hopes and dreams for the hotel before the world stopped was finding a means to develop a special residency and a creative exchange on the outer islands. The start of these compositions and recordings led to a local grant for Jeremiah and Marta to return in 2019 and perform in our 15th century church. They have now made this stunningly beautiful album in LA, with an initial single release By foot By Sea. It transports us to summer, captures our archipelago, resonating the seamlessness of white nights, the shifts of light, mirror seas and swallows, the remote silence and an echo of a viola in an empty pool, and a crossing of time with the improvised sixties organ and synth against a 500 yr old church wall. It is truly beautiful in all iterations and we are so honored to be a small part of their creative path.
Also heart warmed our tiny islands are on a home Chicago label, with so many great musicians I know and love please look listen and … order!
