Ahead of their new album Imperium Droop (Thrill Jockey), out June 25th, the duo of drummer Kid Millions (Oneida) and sound artist Jan St. Werner (Mouse on Mars) have shared the single “Dark Tetrad.” The piece builds a claustrophobic minimalist vortex from a frothing oscillation before bursting into palpitations of percussion and bouncing synth which tumbles back down to pulsing drones. Millions and Werner navigate the piece’s dark expanse with masterful patience and a boundless array of textural variations.

On their debut collaborative album, Millions and Werner, along with special guests Mats Gustafsson, Andrew Barker, and Richard Hoffman, created a collection of beautiful pieces built on surprising sound combinations. The album is the continuation of an ongoing musical dialogue between the two musicians that began in 2016, when Werner invited Millions to perform an interpretation of his Felder album as part of a series of curated concerts and interventions around the globe. Oddly prescient of the events of 2020, the unique performance was held at Oneida’s practice space with an extremely limited audience of one – songwriter Helado Negro. The concert was to be the first in an ongoing series of recorded collaborations between the two musicians, from improvised live performances in New York and Berlin. In addition to a series of concerts accessible via the internet, the duo slowly archived a wealth of recorded material that would form the foundations for Imperium Droop. On Imperium Droop, Millions and Werner have combined their powers into an incomparable work of gripping and intrepid sonic fluctuations. In exploring a liminal space between improvisation and composition, the duo manage to expand their musical dialogue beyond the physical limitations of space and time, striking a truly unique balance between the urgency and unpredictability of improvised performance and deliberate nature of studio composition.