Perpetual Guest is an album of site-specific harmonium and cello recordings created in the abandoned Kreenholm Textile Factory complex on an island in the middle of the Narva River in Narva, Estonia, a stone’s throw from the Estonian-Russian border. It's the result of a month-long residency in Narva, and is rooted in a deep-listening approach to the instruments and to the historic spaces and the tense-calm of the border zone in the midst of Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine and continuing geo-political tensions.

Most of the titles on this album come from scraps of signage and other detritus found around the factory, coarsely translated to English, and from the Finnish folk melody that anchors the closing track. This was pulled from Shostakovich's obscure Suite on Finnish Themes commissioned by the Soviet Military in 1939, purportedly to be played in Helsinki after the USSR’s successful conquest of Finland. This, of course, never happened, but it echoes the spirits of silence and tension in Narva, and the role of culture in conflict and communion while these familiar narratives are repeated again during Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. 

Read a spotlight on the album and the “Magic of Sound(s)” in Tobias Fischer’s 15 Questions

“fragile and bold at the same time” (A Closer Listen)
“the closing performance of ‘Läksin minä kesäyönä käymään’ (which can be translated as “I went out into the groove on a summer’s night”) is a kosmische-style beamed cathedral wonder of magic” (Monolith Cocktail)
“a trance-inducing sound enchantment” (Gonzo Cirus ‘Mind the Gap’)