Samo Kutin

The recording sessions took place at three locations on the Karst Edge and in its hinterland, the Petrinjski Karst.

The first track was recorded in a karst cave. A round figure carved into a stalactite, possibly thousands of years ago, and the remains of old clay vessels on the cave floor suggest that the cave was once used as a sanctuary.

Not far from the village of Beka lies a clay-lined frog pond that collects rainwater. With the calls of the frogs that live there, an approaching summer storm and passing trucks building the second railway track, the second and third tracks took shape beside it in the evening.

The Petrinjski Karst is a patchwork of grassy plains and sinkholes – a habitat for many birds and home to horses cared for by Boris and Neja Magdalenc. In one of the sinkholes, surrounded by trees and bushes, the rest of the album was recorded during the night and early morning.

Samo Kutin began exploring music and musical instruments in his native Čadrg, where he grew up. His dedication to sound art has led him to a personal musical expression and to collaborations with many Slovenian and international artists, with whom he has worked and performed at home and abroad.

Alongside his work in bands and improvisational ensembles, he devotes himself to solo music making, creating organically alive, distinctive soundscapes with prepared traditional or handmade instruments.

It is this genuine liveliness of his music – a fusion of folk music and minimalist patterns – that on this album merges with a third element: living nature itself. The spontaneous dramaturgy of birds, horses, frogs, crickets, a distant train and an approaching storm becomes the inspiration for improvised melodies and, at the same time, an equal part of the music. The sounds of the strings interweave with the sounds of the environment, nature with the performer.

Spaces is a collection of in-situ sound and music recordings guided by a simple premise – one performer, one instrument, one space – capturing the synergy between the musician, the space and the music that emerges in acoustically compelling places. Each session unfolds live over a day or two, with no audience and no studio overdubs. By relying on location field recorders and a minimal microphone setup, we bring studio-grade capture into remote, off-grid locations – leaving the sound honest, unprocessed and defined by the space itself.