Collaborators
Peter and Durant had been connected on social media for a long time and had been quite familiar with each other’s work, before meeting in the summer of 2019.
Durant stopped in the UK for a couple of days of recording with the ambient ensemble Darkroom. Their guitarist, Michael Bearpark, invited him to an evening with his old friends from Cambridge University. Peter was among them. After a very memorable evening together, Peter and Jon began discussing a future collaboration. In the midst of the pandemic they both found themselves with ample time for musical contemplation, their album Vista and EP Always Golden Sands very quickly emerged.
Colin and Durant first worked on Dance of the Shadow Planets (2011). From there they began Burnt Belief, with the first album title becoming the band name for subsequent records. In addition, they collaborated on the Astarta/Edwin album (2013) which was followed by the Edwin Durant Kovtun album (2018). Colin also contributed to the album Across the Evening (with Robert Jürjendal) and Durant’s newest solo album, Momentarily. Colin is also a member of Fractal Sextet.
Robert first connected with Jon Durant in 2017, when Durant was asked to do the cover layout for Jürjendal’s album Another World with Colin Edwin. Though they’d known each other’s work for a while and had many mutual friends, they had never before connected personally. The two immediately began discussing a way to work together. In the summer of 2019, Durant traveled to Tallinn for a few days to write and rehearse together. The pair played a concert at Philly Joe’s Jazz Club at the end of the week. Trumpeter Aleksei Saks joined them, as did Inna Kovtun. Their album Across the Evening was born from that week, and two of the tracks were recorded live at the concert.
Inna Kovtun is an acclaimed Ukrainian folk singer and musicologist. After the invasion of Ukraine, Kovtun and her daughter moved to Portland, Oregon, where they have taken refuge in the home of Jon Durant. During this time, we produced a joint EP, Burning Fires. A unique blend of folk music and rock ‘n roll, Burning Fires features several other collaborators hailing from Oregon to England to Italy.
Andi and Durant first worked together when he was invited to add percussion to two tracks on the album Across the Evening (with Robert Jürjendal). He was very enthusiastic about the music and wanted to find a way to bring the material live. Unfortunately, the album’s release coincided with the start of the pandemic.
He added his signature percussive approach to the fourth Burnt Belief album, Mutual Isolation, and the pair also worked together on Stephan Thelen’s Fractal Guitar 2 and 3 albums. He became a member of Fractal Sextet and also played drums and percussion on Momentarily.
Stephan Thelen is a composer, guitarist, and mathematician based in Zürich, Switzerland. Thelen and Durant first worked together on their joint 2021 album, Crossings, and in 2022 again joined forces as one-third of the group Fractal Sextet.
In another shared project, this spring Durant will join Thelen for Part II of Rothko Spaces, a series combining electric guitar with orchestral strings in an ode to the works of Mark Rothko.