Created by Teo Camporeale and Paula Hayes, of the Existential Reformation League (The ERL), Us, is an album of 12 sound pieces, originally intended to be experienced while viewing an accompanying set of digital collage images. Each sound piece is paired with a specific digital collage of the same title.

The artists write, "Though each piece represents a different story, they are all linked with a common thread of process and a kind of source material that we call "domestic field recordings". That would be, sounds that are randomly occurring like typical field recordings, but are taken from sources within our daily domestic lives. A dripping sink drain, a squeaky clothes dryer, a grandchild bouncing a ball, things like that.

Each of these pieces began with an associated visual image, a free form, digital collage that we would make using an iPad doodling app. Then, by gazing at the completed collage image as if something like a mandala, Paula (and sometimes Teo) would perform an improvised “narrative”, of whatever came to mind in the moment, which Teo would record, uninterrupted, or to use the recording studio term, “wild". That term has a great resonance with the process for how Teo would approach working with her narratives, as if they too were field recordings– raw material, captured from the wild, listening for the story within. This process was at the core of how we collaborated for these pieces. That's how the title "Us" came about.

Sometimes the narrative would be musical, with singing, or with improvised piano, flute, drums, bells and guitar– played by either Paula or Teo. All of these performances became a trove of material that Teo would then edit and layer into what would become the backbone story for each sound piece. Then, he would draw from his library of collected outside and domestic field recordings to build out the completed scene.

We originally conceived of Us as installation in a gallery setting where one could experience the physically printed collage images, while listening to the associated sound pieces on headphones. We've come to feel that the sound pieces work on their own, even without their visual counterparts. Thanks to WGXC for airing the broadcast premier of, Us!"