Roxane Métayer, Katya Shirshkova, Sara Eelen - Périodique des Chemins Boueux ⧸ Herbes Étincelles (2026)

Like Peter Brötzmann and Han Bennink's landmark 'Schwarzwaldfahrt', Brussel's based artist Roxane Métayer's collaboration with vocalist Katya Shirshkova is in conversation with nature itself, in this case Belgium's lush Doode Bemde nature reserve that acts as the backdrop to the duo's performance.

To begin this project, Métayer drove out from Brussels to Doode Bemde each month for a year, recording (and filming) the nature as it changed with the seasons, recording the ponds and forests and marshes and fields - even the passing trains. Her musical accompaniment, played on violin, was conceived as a reaction to the sounds of the nature reserve, something that strikes you immediately on 'La Feuille Rieuse'. Métayer sounds as if she's been untethered from the instrument's stodgy history, listening carefully to the environment and mimicking the soundscape: the birdsong and the wind as it rushes through dry branches. And her approach changes with the seasons, never looking inward but reacting to the shifting sonics: the swarms of bees and chirping crickets on 'Floral Zigzag' and the rush of an engine on 'Octave Express'.

And when the album reaches is halfway point, France-based vocalist, composer and performance artist Shirshkova steps in, taking the same radical approach and using her voice to compliment the natural sounds. 'Spectral Birds', for example, opens with rushing waters and singing birds, then Métayer echoes the tones with her fiddle before moving to longer, wavering notes that take on the appearance of winds or maybe insects. Shirshkova's powerful voice fills in the gaps, pulling the music further away from its classical expectations. And the duo are even more effective on 'Confidences'; Shirshkova takes the lead here, vocalizing and hissing and wailing to rasping grasshopper sounds and the lulling white noise of a waterfall. Even the comparatively hymnal 'Lisières' occupies its own space on the fringe, providing a palate cleanser before the dramatic 'Sparkling Clouds'.