Beam Splitter is the Berlin-based duo of partners in music and life – Chinese-American vocal artist Audrey Chen and Norwegian experimental trombonist Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø. This duo has been working and touring globally since 2015, offering their unique brand of highly amplified dialog, which is as intimate as it is equal amounts raw and entirely exposed. Their idiosyncratic voices are merged into a distinct language that delves beyond the borders of the corporeal elements of un-processed voice and trombone while utilizing analog electronics to offset their hyper-extended physical play.

wrists out is the first release of Beam Splitter with British legendary vocal artist Phil Minton, with whom Chen worked extensively for almost twenty years, including as a duo (check By The Stream, Sub Rosa, 2013, and Frothing Morse, Tour de Bras, 2020). The album is an unprocessed and unedited live concert recorded at Robalo Music in Lisbon in May 2024, mixed by Nørstebø. The cover photo is by Chen.

Beam Splitter and Minton performed together before recording wrists out and already developed a deep rapport and a singular overlap of shared sonic languages. The vocal duo of the closed-miked Chen And Minton complements each other in their free-associative, eccentric but highly expressive and emotional stream of wordless vocalizations, as the duo of Chen and Nørstebø creates an alien, hyperactive sonic universe of its own. Together this trio offers a hyper-extended, imaginative and strangely engaging sonic entity of mouthful and breath antics for un-processed double voice and trombone, combined with the monophonic analog synthesise – monotron, feedback and sound files.

wrists out offers only four pieces but as soon as it ends you may find yourself rushing to play it again to sense its out-of-body listening experience.

Eyal Hareuveni

Audrey Chen (voice), Phil Minton (voice), Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø (amplified trombone, monotron, sound files)