Oberlin is the musical project of Alexander Holtz from Koblenz (Coblence), Germany. The centerpiece of his instruments is a modular eurorack synthesizer, which he often combines with guitar, piano and field-recordings. His music invites the listener to contemplate, it often is developing quite slowly, it never demands to be in a certain focus of attention, but it never tries to fulfil any ambient-clichees in the sense of creating just an aural wallpaper either. It is musical improvisation maybe in a more subtle kind of way. Oberlin has released music on Handstitched*, cosmic winnetou, Thirsty Leaves, Vaagner, Hibernate, Secret Press, AOsmosis, some tapes and downloads by himself and, notably two beautiful cassette albums on Mahorka.
Xu is Nicola Fornasari from Cremona, Italy. He began his musical career in 1995 as the bass player and singer for the hardcore band Entropia. Starting in 2007, he began exploring new musical projects, including Xu(e) (a duo with Andrea Poli), Xu (his solo project), La Petite Vague (a duo with Diego Balconi), and That Which is Not (a duo with Pier Giorgio Storti / Belaqua Shua) in 2020. His music has been released on a variety of labels, including Fluid, Whitelabrecs, Shimmering Moods, Slow Tone Collages, Krysalisound, Eilean, Flaming Pines, Rottenman Editions, Rohs! / Lontano, Twice Removed, Cathedral Transmissions, Triple Moon, Thirsty Leaves Music, Audio Gourmet, Tessellate, Haze, Many Feet Under, Subterranean Tide, and Laverna. He has collaborated with artists such as Darren Harper, Bill Seaman and Francis Gri.
“Velvet Meadow Resonance Fragment” is the third collaborative album between Xu and Oberlin. For this project, Oberlin provided acoustic guitar sketches, asking Xu to process and transform them into the foundation of the tracks. The recordings were then manipulated through a modular Eurorack system or altered using the Samplr iPad app. Oberlin handled the final polishing and mastering. This work marks the first chapter of an ongoing experiment. In the next chapter, currently in progress, it will be Oberlin who develops everything, starting from the material provided by Xu. Stay tuned.
Released March 23, 2025 as free (cc) digital download and beautiful limited cassette edition.
Recorded in the Summer of 2023 in Koblenz, Germany and Cremona, Italy
Xu: electronics
Oberlin: guitar
Artwork photo taken and edited by Alexander Holtz
Artwork design by Angel Draganov
“Many thanks to Ivo Petrov and the Mahorka label for taking care of this release”
