Picard & Picard – Hold Music for a Space Rescue

released October 21st in digital and poster formats

Picard as Locutus was cloned in a transporter accident, then both Picards had their Borg implants removed. Now one goes by Jean-Luc and the other by Larry. But which is which? And what do they remember?

Carlos Cotallo Solares – electric guitar, electronics
Jeffrey Young – violin, electronics

Philadelphia-based duo Picard & Picard are pleased to present their debut album “Hold Music for a Space Rescue” on Gold Bolus Recordings. The duo, comprised of Carlos Cotallo Solares (guitar, electronics) and Jeffrey Young (violin, electronics), moves between dreamy electro-acoustic soundscapes and harsh, deliberate noise, drawing on their backgrounds as improvisers and composers.

The album is the product of improvised sessions by the artists playing together over Zoom in November and December 2020. Each musician recorded their part on their own computer, then the tracks were merged and lightly edited. The album is conceived of as a set of music that a futuristic space rescue company would provide for a crashed space explorer to listen to while waiting to be rescued. The sequence of tracks reflects the rescue process.

The album comes in a poster version designed by Swiss-based visual artist Marina Z Cotallo. It functions as a set of visual instructions for the grounded astronaut and modeled after an airplane safety card.

Carlos and Jeffrey met in Philadelphia playing in the Arcana Open Sound Workshop, a project of Bowerbird’s Arcana New Music Ensemble that served as a space for contemporary classical musicians to explore and develop open score pieces. They began working as a duo in March 2020, just before the start of the coronavirus lockdowns, and their first public concerts were performed over Zoom, with the two musicians calling in from their separate apartments across the city.