“When you two meet and start playing together, I want to be there, because it will be completely facemelting”

Even before Terri Hron and Samuel Davidson met at The Banff Centre during their Creative Music Residencies in the winter of 2009, program manager Geoff Shoesmith predicted that something very special would come together. From the very beginning of their three months, the duo improvised almost daily and organized two FACEMELTs: completely improvised musical concerts where fellow residents were invited to participate.

With almost daily improvisation sessions, the duo was able to build upon the strong aesthetic bond which they enjoyed right from their first experiments. Both Terri and Sam play acoustic and electric, with a combination of recorder, clarinet, EWI and effect pedals. Their playing is an exploration of timbre and colour, grounded within an affinity for minimalism, instant forms and intonation experiments.

The first performance was done in participation with visual artist Michael Markowsky. Both Michael and Terri share a fascination for space and its uncharted artistic territory, and so this inspired a name change for the band to SpaceMelt.

SpaceMelt exists at the nexus of contemporary classical electroacoustic music and avant-garde jazz. It is the result of a dedicated ongoing practice of listening and improvising. It exists not only to foster an ongoing development and relationship of improvisation between Terri, Sam and Michael, but also to use the result of that collaboration to create an inviting environment for other artists (both well-versed and new to improvisation) to join in their collective music-making. It has been their experience that the stronger their voice and facility with instant structures, the less need there is for verbal instruction and decisions in advance. Their goal is to develop a form which allows them to collaborate with as diverse a spectrum of artists as possible.

Here are some recent tracks recorded in the Telus Studio at The Banff Centre by Will Howie.

Brontosaurus Brunch

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with Dani Oore

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inTONEation

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