The Brvtalist is proud to present a new mix from Pierce With Arrow. The collaborative project of minimal techno pioneer Troy Pierce and Colombian audiovisual artist Natalia Escobar aka Poison Arrow, recently released their collaborative debut, Shatter (DAIS), which is a powerful work of sound and visual art. Veering from the producers’ well known dance floor oriented sound, Shatter is a cinematic record which masterfully weaves through different emotions and atmospheres. Their mix for us takes their sound and constructs a mind bending journey.

To mark the mix and release, we also present a great Q&A with duo which you can read below.

-JRS

The Brvtalist: I read the project was started in the reverse - with the visuals being completed first. So let's go back to that point. What inspired you both to collaborate on something visual?

PwA: We started our collaboration around 2009 doing sound pieces for Natalia’s installations and videos. After collaborating on a few audio pieces, we thought to work the other way and make something visual first, the initial idea was to make a short film and write the score to it which was a totally new way of working for us. We ended up making ten vignettes inspired by the Greek myth of Narcissus & Echo and scored them.

TB: The music is also quite powerful and cinematic but veers from both of your backgrounds in dance floor driven music. Talk about what it's like creating new or different sounds. Is it comfortable? Or maybe you like that it's not?

PwA: Thanks, that’s really nice to hear, as one of our goals with this project was to make music that was more cinematic and less clubby, more suited to a candle lit living room than a dance floor. We tried to create a palette of sounds that were unique to us, and this project definitely forced us out of our comfort zones, but at the end of the day it’s a really rewarding process. When we step back now and listen to the record as a whole there is cohesiveness in the production and sound design that we don’t think we have in any other record we’ve ever made.

TB: Tell us a little bit about the mix and what you wanted to do with it?

PwA: Disjointed moments of contemplation and dancing, ups and downs coming together at the end of a dystopian hallway.

TB: How are you both feeling at this point in the pandemic period? A little hopeful? Inspired? Pessimistic?

N: I am feeling all of the above, I think things are going to take longer than we expect to go back to a sort of normality, I am uncertain to what kind of normality that is that going to be, but I am definitely hoping for a post-Covid renaissance, meanwhile I am trying to work towards it. It is a good time to re-imagine our reality and our future, the way we connect with each other, and with nature. We need to reinvent ourselves and create a tangible utopia that will help us to get out of this mess and re-connect with what is essential.

T: On a personal level I am feeling quite good at the moment, I received my first vaccine does last week (after volunteering at an outdoor vaccination site here in Arizona) and have my appointment for the second dose in two weeks which is a huge relief. I feel a little more comfortable to travel now as the underlying paranoia of getting sick or making someone else sick has subsided. It was a very challenging year and it’s great to finally see movement in a positive direction.

TB: What's coming up next for the project + both of you?

PwA: We are meeting in the Sonoran Desert soon to get in the studio, rehearse for live shows and start working on something new. There is a multi-sensorial live show we have planned, and we are trying to find a way to make it happen.

N: I have been living and working in a farm in Santuario, Colombia for the past 3 months with a group of artists, farmers and some members of a community of trans indigenous women from the Embera tribes. We just finished an intense and emotional month filming with them. It was such a beautiful and surreal experience, I had to unlearn everything I thought I knew and surrender to a new language of life.

I am now working on the post-production of the film and the music for it, the idea is to create a full-length album and an immersive audiovisual installation, shifting the focus from white, western and urban designs of gender identity to post-colonial, non-western and rural concepts of queerness.

T: I am wrapping up a few remixes now and I am also starting to work on a new A/V project with my wife Cornelia Thonhauser inspired by sacred American Indian sites in Arizona and New Mexico.