A Mountain Doesn't Know It's Tall. The title reflects the mood of this duo record of Fred Frith and Ikue Mori – playful, poetic, mysterious and open. The guitarist and the sound-artist have been working together for forty years. Live excerpts from their work are documented on Fred Frith's 3 CD box set Live at the Stone (Intakt CD 320).
In January 2015, Frith and Mori met in Germany to record the music for a radio play for Werner Penzel, the filmmaker and longtime friend of Fred Frith, for his film Zen for Nothing. After finishing their work, they used the free studio day to record their first duo album together. Influenced by the film music and inspired by the long friendship 15 pieces were created that are both wonderful sound sculptures and fascinating dialogues.
Fred Frith writes: “Air moving through ears and hair and lungs and pores, through songs,and scrapes, and scraps of this, that and the other.” And Ikue Mori writes: “... it was about playing with the every- day noises that arise when cooking, playing ping-pong, and especi- ally when laughing. There is a lot of joy in working with these recor- dings, interacting with them and making music.”

Cover art: Heike Liss
Cover and graphic design: Fiona Ryan
Photo: Ayako Mogi

Recorded January 24th, 2015, by Peter Hardt at Jankowski Sound Fabrik, Esslingen. Mixed on August 20th, 2020, by
Peter Hardt at Sound Fabrik, except “Now Here” on March 2nd, 2018, by Peter Hardt at Sound Fabrik. Mastered September 2020 by Myles Boisen at Headless Buddha, Oakland. Produced by
Fred Frith and Intakt Records. Published by Intakt Records, Patrik Landolt, Anja Illmaier, Florian Keller, P.O. Box, 8024 Zürich, Switzerland