Since 2016, friends and producers Jean-Gabriel Becker and Susumu Mukai have been meeting for regular collaborative recording sessions at Sounds And Sons studio in Shoreditch.
Susumu Mukai, originally from Kanagawa, Japan, has been involved in diverse projects such as Zongamin, Stalactite and Off World as producer and multi-instrumentalist. Mukai is also a member of bands including Fimber Bravo, Vanishing Twin and Floating Points.
Jean-Gabriel Becker, originally from Paris, France, has been writing music under various names and in numerous projects, from Jeanga And George and Economy Wolf to Lux Prima to name only a few. He also composes extensively for films and television under his own name.
The sessions for Eyes, their first EP together, unfolded as a musical dialogue between the duo –open-ended, discovering the sounds as they revealed themselves in an organic way. Those sessions started as experimental and improvisational and typically evolved as they programmed and performed live on various electronic instruments, as well as guitars and other more unusual acoustic instruments, like trombone or exotic percussions… These recordings created the backbone for the tracks.
Although some influences can be heard, from acid-house to krautrock, to jazz and psychedelia, the otherness of Eyes EP refuses to be categorised easily. The drawing on the front sleeve was taken from a collection of Susumu’s works called Animas, and depicts a person devolving to an ancestral form.