New Music From Michael Stearns + Christian Halten, ‘Sounds Searching for People’
Pioneering synthesist and composer Michael Stearns and composer/developer Christian Halten have released a new album, Sounds Searching for People, that is available now via Bandcamp.
The music is the result of a three-year collaboration between Stearns, who is based in Santa Fe, and Halten, who is based in Berlin.
Stearns is best known for his ambient electronic albums, like Planetary Unfolding, and his soundtracks to Ron Fricke’s 70MM movies Chronos, Baraka and Samsara. His work includes 22 IMAX films, 17 studio albums, and music for Avatar and Titanic.
Halten has worked as film composer, including collaborations with Hans Zimmer, is the developer of the sampling software SampleRobot, and has done sound design for Applied Acoustics Systems, Korg, Steinberg and Waldorf.
“In 2021, Julius Horsthuis asked me to create music for his 3D fractal production Beyond Chaos at the Experimenta Dome in Germany,” explains Stearns. “Between 2021 and 2024, I traveled to Germany a number of times to work with Julius in the dome. On each trip, Christian and I would use the opportunity to get together in hotel rooms to record our album. Christian would arrive on a train from Berlin laden with equipment, guitars, synthesizers… whatever he could carry. I would pack instruments and processors from my Santa Fe studio into an extra suitcase. Inside hotel rooms in Frankfurt, Cologne, and Ludwigsburg a wonderful musical collaboration unfolded.”
“Sounds Searching for People is about instruments, music and sounds talking to a musician directly and speaking through the musician with their own personality,” says Stearns. “The musician becomes the conduit through which the sounds and music are expressed, brought to life in the world of sound we inhabit.”
You can preview the album below:
Sounds Searching for People is available now via Bandcamp.
