DRUBA is Chris Bartholomew (electronics) and Laonikos Psimikakis Chalkokondylis (shakuhachi).

We have been playing together since 2010 in various ebbs and flows of creative endeavours. In 2015 we did our last big thing, a five-hour durational improvisation performance at Helsinki Music Centre, followed by a self-released album, umami-music (2016). We went on to develop our own work independently, and met again in June 2026 where our musics collided again. Over two days, we recorded with practically no preparation, reviewed, edited, and eventually picked four pieces for this EP. 

Our way of working hasn’t changed much in ten years. Sometimes our sounds sit close together, sometimes we pull them apart, and stuff happens in the in-between that we think is worth listening again. We sometimes play nice and make space for each other, and others we disrupt and pull harder in one direction or another, all in the name of the search for a good sound. Underpinning this is a curiosity and trust in each other, and the reward of a well-deserved pint afterwards.

The shakuhachi is an end-blown bamboo flute, traditionally used by Zen Buddhist monks as a tool for meditation rather than performance. The traditional repertoire, honkyoku, occupies a unique aesthetic, occupying the threshold between music and noise, human and more-than-human, the controlled and the uncontrollable. Although as an instrument it has been commodified to symbolise zen gardens and meditation, it lends itself very well to noise by its own nature. In these tracks, Laonikos draws on traditional pieces (hi fu mi cho, hon shirabe) and lean on traditional techniques, tinkering with them against and with the electronics to explore new possibilities for shakuhachi sound.

Chris designs and programmes their own electronic instruments for each project. For these improvisations the setup was focused on live granular sampling – bringing in sounds (either from their sample library or Laonikos’ shakuhachi), cutting them into tiny “grains” and manipulating how they’re played back. To control these instruments, Chris used an Embodme Erae Touch – a flat, slightly squishy playing surface that is able to send controls based on left-right-up-down coordinates as well as pressure. This allows for more nuanced gestural playing that meets the shakuhachi in a natural choreography between the two, the complex overtones of the shakuhachi lending themselves particularly well to interaction with these tools.