Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer have produced another catalogue highlight for International Anthem Recordings – joining the label’s ambient and jazz dots, through this fourth world music gem.

The album – The Closest Thing to Silence – expands a collaboration originally undertaken by the three artists for the BBC Radio 3 program Late Junction. The album’s lead single – Écoute au Loin – starting with a manipulated loop of woodwinds played by Kalma, before Honer’s strings and Chiu’s synthesizer and drum machine programming. A breakdown section in the middle of the song includes a sample of Kalma’s voice, as he discusses ideas and directions for the music. Chiu created the accompanying promo-vid’ using an LZX modular video synthesizer system.

In August 2022, the Australia-based, French born new age musician and electronic music composer Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program unites artists who have not previously created music together. Kalma suggested working with two musicians whom he had never met – International Anthem recording artists Chiu and Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut Recordings from the Åland Islands had been released just a few months earlier. Longtime fan Chiu has cited Kalma as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition and was thrilled.

The title of the album chosen by the group is taken from a quote by Kalma, included in a documentary released by RVNG Intl, as part of the 2014 compendium/retrospective An Evolutionary Music. Perhaps coincidental, Kalma’s quote was similar to that of a legendary ECM Records motto: “Music is the closest thing to silence.”