FLO at ‘Ghost Structures’ – a telematic album collaboration

In 2021, as part of the ]FairTsuku[ project, presenting female and non-binary composers from various backgrounds, the Fair_Play network (Vienna, Austria) and Tsuku Boshi Records (Paris, France) invited Female Laptop Orchestra (FLO) and Camille Lacroix to produce music for their upcoming EP, ‘Ghost Structures‘. 

Between September 2021 and September 2022, FLO members: Nela Brown (London), Maria Mannone (Palermo), Magdalena Chudy (Warsaw), Ariane Stolfi (Arraial d’Ajuda), Sonia Wilkie (Melbourne) and Ada Mathea Hoel (Oslo), organized a number of telematic music improvisation sessions, during which we connected over the network using the SonoBus platform (from our respective locations) and recorded 4 compositions for the EP. The individual stems from these remotely composed tracks then got edited, mixed and mastered by Nela in London before being sent to Tsuku Boshi Records based in Paris.

The four FLO tracks and performers are as follows:

• Once upon a time (Nela Brown, Maria Mannone, Ariane Stolfi, Sonia Wilkie)
• Unavailable at the moment (Nela Brown, Magdalena Chudy, Ada Mathea Hoel, Maria Mannone, Ariane Stolfi)
• Building a connection (Nela Brown, Magdalena Chudy, Ada Mathea Hoel, Maria Mannone, Ariane Stolfi)
• Women are from Mars (Nela Brown, Magdalena Chudy, Ada Mathea Hoel, Maria Mannone, Ariane Stolfi)

This was the second album collaboration for which FLO produced compositions made entirely telematically (the first was the Oceans Reimagined, published by Pueblo Nuevo net label based in Chile, for which produced a telematic remix), and it quickly became our favourite way of producing music 🙂 Sure, it takes time to set up the tech for the remote recording sessions, to organize everyone’s schedule across different time zones (from Brazil to Australia, these are some very busy ladies indeed!) and to prep the recordings for the album release (40 hours give or take!) but it was totally worth it!!!

WE HOPE YOU LIKE 🙂

If you want to have a go at recording your own telematic album (using the tools and techniques we used), feel free to get in touch!

Besides Spotify, you can also listen to the whole EP on SoundCloud, iTunes, Deezer and probably a few other platforms (thanks to Tsuku Boshi Records expertise in digital distribution channels).

A BIG THANK you to the following peeps and organisations who helped make this EP happen:

• Our host from Tsuku Boshi Records, Laurent Guérel
• The awesome Camille Lacroix (our collaborator on the EP, who made an amazing electroacoustic track you can check out here: Transformateur destiné à utiliser les petites énergies gaspillées)
• Our gear sponsors: Bitwig Studio, Audio-Technica, RØDE Microphones, PreSonus and NETGEAR