MINIT is the duo of Jasmine Guffond and Torben Tilly. Since 1997 Minit have been making records, exhibiting sound installations and performing live, developing works of varied scope based on the use of processed acoustic, electronic, and found sound sources. Their releases to date convey a unique meeting of improvised abstract electronics and stripped back minimalist design, yet reveal in almost every case a penchant for the unexpected, either as a melodic twist into song or as a sudden implosion into chaotic spectral noise.
The music of Minit transforms incrementally over time in subtle and hallucinatory ways. From fragile harmonic and melodic intonations to towering, ecstatic drones bordering at times on rock music forms. Their release 'Now Right Here' on Germany's Staubgold label was a masterpiece collection of spectral drone music, capturing a balance between noise and harmony, excitation and calmness, distance and intimacy - drawing you into a hypnotic, psychedelic sound-world that is like no other.
Recent concerts have seen Minit using guitars, drums and vocals to conjure actual songs (both originals and cover versions) from within densely textured layers of shimmering electronics.
Minit was formed in 1997 in Sydney, Australia. Jasmine Guffond currently resides in Berlin, Germany. Torben Tilly currently resides in Auckland, New Zealand.
*DISCOGRAPHY*:
'II/IV' 8". Snawklor Records, 1998
'Music', CD, Sigma Editions, 1999
'Bootleg/Four' 7", Tonschacht, 1999
'cc/bb', LP, Sigma Editions, 2000
'Now Right Here', CD/LP, Staubgold, 2004
*SELECTED PRESS EXCERPTS*:
"This duo has the golden touch, honestly[their] music is like escaping gas, except its been wrapped in a big, hazy, gauzy ball of cotton wool, then steeped in liquid codeine."
- Jon Dale
http://worldsofpossibility.blogspot.com 2003_09_01_worldsofpossibility_archive.html
"densely textured, drone-based music structured generally around traditonal Minimalist ideas of simple and understated melody. Latticed field captures, robust organic loops, and stacked synthetic vibrations combine to create imersive environments of certain constancy, but within which textural breakthroughs do occur. Like most works with a tendency towards explicit Minimalism, a part-for-the-whole aesthetic is available here.and has potential to reveal a small, shimmering world of harmonic variations and sliding, evaporating tones. To contradictory effect, the music also seems to move towards specific melodic ascensions, approaching, at several places, throbbing arabesques fit for a full orchestra. These betrayals of subtlety, these breaks in the level planes created by so much textural detailing, create the unique paradox that helps Minit stand out in a glut of like-minded musicians."
- Andrew Culler,
http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/brainv07i34.html
"Perfect combination of ecstatic rock ("Ecstacy Symphony") and textural drone."
- Neptune Records
http://www.neptunerecords.com
".a spectacularly well-controlled teasing out of the slightest of melodic interventions into an arching bell-curve of haunting sonorities, punctuated, once only, but dramatically, by the introduction of a chthonic bass-line that blooms with the secretive glory of a night-flowering orchid, and then begins to decay again into a twitchy, melancholy largo, concluding, finally, with a funereal, bell-like tolling into silence."
- Paul Rowlands
http://www.noripcord.com/reviews/M/minitalbum.html
"Think Fennesz - no beat, melody or instruments but the hook remains."
- Flux, UK
"Now Right Here is a complex, yet extremely powerful and utterly enjoyable journey through the world of sound relationships. Truly Minit's masterpiece, it's one of the best albums of the year so far, hands down. Most highly recommended."
- Thor
http://www.twoblock.net/review.php?id=76
