The Silence Set

Some collaborations start out with a fully formed idea of what the end result will be like. And the creative process thus becomes something of a straight line, a mapped out road towards a clearly visible and tangible goal. The Silence Set didn’t begin like that at all, in fact quite the opposite. It began in total freedom, a tabula rasa in the truest sense. It began in a mutual respect and from an idea of working together without limitations or boundaries in regards of genres or previous musical output. The Silence Set consists of Gothenburg based musicians and composers Dag Rosenqvist and Johan G Winther. The former perhaps best known as the now defunct Jasper TX, the latter for his work in angular math rock outfit Scraps Of Tape and from his previous solo effort as Tsukimono. Over the course of about three years, the sounds of acoustic guitar, pump organ, piano, banjo and voice where caught on tape, rearranged, processed and coupled with other sounds and recordings, only to then be left waiting for months on end. And all the while life changed, relationships ended, new life began and older lives ended. More sounds where recorded, arranged and left to wait. Eventually tracks started to emerge, tracks with lyrics and titles and some sort of structure, something resembling actual songs. People were invited into the process and slowly an album began to take shape. Kristofer Ström joined in to perform trumpet on one track. Heather Woods Broderick played flute, wrote lyrics and sang beautifully on the longest track on the album, where also Nils Frahm contributed with both his mixing skills as well as with synthesizer. Eventually an album was done, only to then, naturally, be left waiting for months on end. And life changed even more.