upsammy and Valentina Magaletti announce collaborative album, Seismo

Seismo first came to be as a commission from Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, for which the duo soundtracked an exhibition featuring works from the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. They spent time in the museum’s galleries, recording improvised percussive sounds and using the architecture of the space to inform the rhythms and textures that would become the album’s foundation.

"Superimposed" arrives as the first look into that process, which follows rare festival appearances from upsammy & Magaletti at Unsound, MUTEK Montreal, Le Guess Who, and Draaimolen.

upsammy has previously used environmental field recordings as a tool, notably on her second album Germ in a Population of Buildings, released in 2024, which saw her turn cityscape recordings into complex rhythm structures and off-kilter melodies.

Magaletti expands upon this sound with decades of experience "approaching drums with criticism" within the experimental world, having collaborated with Nídia, Moin, Shackleton and many others, in addition to putting out her own solo work with the aim of challenging preconceptions around what percussion can sound like.

Seismo, written by both upsammy and Magaletti, sees the artists bring their perspectives together to create what is described as "a collaboration that sounds like two minds challenging each other but not wrestling, each peering from their own distinct vantage point and imagining a third landscape shaped by optimistic, queer vibrations."

Seismo artwork

Seismo tracklist

“It Comes To An End”
“Superimposed”
“Hyperlocalize”
“Thickness of Signs”
“Every Cell Thought Every Thinkable Thing”
“Mementoes”
“Collide”
“Some Unimaginable World”