It was some time last summer that I first heard of Paul / The Owl. At first I noticed the obvious - his talent, versatility and unreal prolificacy, but soon I also realised that he's a big supporter of other artists. I was probably going to reach out to him at some point anyway, especially after we became 'labelmates', with the excellent Adventurous Music label (adventurousmusic.bandcamp.com) releasing both our music. But when I saw that he'd perform at Noise Fest in Brno in March, the idea was too good to pass on - Brno was on my list of places to visit and there was an opportunity of meeting Paul in person while also attending a festival that looked very interesting. 

I first contacted him on March 11, he was very friendly in his reply and it also turned out he listened to - and liked - my 'Infrapacific' EP while preparing his own Adventurous Music album. We agreed very quickly on details for next Saturday when the festival was on. As my wife and daughter were not able to come with me to Brno that weekend, a friend came along - the same one whose holiday videos I used as field recordings for the aforementioned 'Infrapacific' EP. 

Brno is beautiful, the festival was great and meeting Paul and his wife Blanka was a treat - it went from the obvious topics concerning the music processes to things like travel, living in different places etc. Paul and I are the same age, so that was a factor as well, as was his much greater experience in music - I had some questions... His stirring performance at the festival gave me the idea to try and make a sort of ambient rework of it, so I recorded a few minutes with my phone.

After the Brno weekend, our correspondence continued and we talked about a possible collaboration. A split release was eventually agreed on, each of us providing two tracks inspired by Brno, the festival and Paul's performance. I tried all kinds of things with the sounds I recorded in Brno, but as it sometimes happens - nothing worked. I did however hear (or thought I heard) a very short melody among the noise of a heavily processed piece of that footage. That was the starting point of 'We Built a Ladder'. The rest of the track came together quickly, combining field recordings from an April trip to Udine, some I made especially for this release and some instruments. 'Foreign Accent Voice Over' was made from old material and was aimed to honour the theme of the festival in a way, while keeping the overall feel I envisioned for my part of this release. After I sent him my tracks, Paul finished his in a single day - August 14.

It goes without saying that music and life intertwine and influence each other in many ways. This release feels like an especially good example of that, since it has an extra layer in that regard as the tracks themselves consist of sonic documents of both of our lives. 

You can read Paul's experience on this release and the events that lead to it at his Bandcamp page: theowl.bandcamp.com/album/112-split-with-quatrefoil, as well as in the PDF file that is included in the download of this release and contains both our liner notes.