Molly Berg contributes varied breathy, glottal vocalizations in her collaborations with Stephen Vitiello. There is the sound she emits from her vocal cords, and the sound that she makes with her clarinet. Both can veer into an etheral, heavenly zone, or can settle in a more tactile, percussive space. The combination with Vitiello’s equally untraditional guitar playing — at times his pizzicato becomes the sonic equivalent of a lense flare — and his rich employment of digital transformations makes for listening that keeps your ears alert even as it provides a sense of relaxation. The first track off their second album together, the recently released Between You and the Shapes You Take (12k), is titled “From Here,” and it gets a second round of digital nudging in a remix by Tokyo-based musician Yui Onodera. It opens with the same averbal intonartion as the original, and moments of that beading guitar remain pure as it proceeds, but by and large this is the original as heard through a semi-opaque scrim of computer-enabled processing, the sharper edges turned into approximative clouds.
Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/stephenvitiello. Berg and Vitiello are based in Richmond, Virginia. More on the record at 12k.com. More from Vitiello at stephenvitiello.com. More from Ondera at soundcloud.com/yui_onodera and critical-path.info. (If you’re aware of a web site or social network account for Berg, please let me know.)