Cyclical Magazine: # 22 (2026 July issue)

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Cells Interlinked interview:

TELL US THE STORY BEHIND YOUR NEW ALBUM “COLD SPRING NOTES”

“Cold Spring Notes” is our second album, and of course after releasing the first one, we were thinking about the direction in which to develop this project. On the one hand, we wanted to preserve the style and mood that had already formed in the first album – a combination of the canon of traditional electronic music / Berlin School with a more flexible and open spectrum of contemporary ambient subgenres. But we didn’t want to replicate the same imprint again and again, so we were looking for a creative method that would allow us to improvise freely, using genres as elements of a musical language.

This is how the idea emerged to base the new album on improvisational jam sessions recorded in nature (which would later be refined in the studio). In this way, the environment itself could become a source of inspiration, shaping both the process and the result. It was the fourth year of the war, with ongoing missile attacks and blackouts. These outings into nature with our musical setup gave us an opportunity to switch focus and find a way beyond this traumatic experience, concentrating on the inner space.

Last spring turned out to be quite cold, which brought a certain liminal atmosphere – when the new season has not yet begun, and the previous one has not yet ended. It was a strange state of being between everything and nothing. The album “Cold Spring Notes” became a kind of notebook of inner states, shaped by a cold and uncertain spring. In those conditions, nature revealed itself as a parallel, silent layer of eternity – something that continues regardless of human events. This perception became central to the atmosphere of the album.

We began working with live improvisations recorded outdoors, in natural environments – near a lake, a watermill, among trees. These sessions captured fleeting moments of presence, where attention, sound, and environment merged into a single flow. Despite the context in which it was created, the album reflects abstract, introspective, and sometimes even luminous states.

The structure of all compositions on the album is the result of live playing, improvisation. Each new place we came to dictated its own sonic language and approach through its atmosphere. Later, while listening back to this material, we found ourselves again in those same places and moments where we had actually been present.

After each of these sessions, we brought into the studio a track that formed the basic foundation of the composition, and in which we changed nothing except for minor equalization during mixing. The completeness of the tonal events of this main sequence, the timbral changes of the oscillators, the movement of envelopes and modulations, together with the behavior of the elements in the processing chain – all of this became the constant of the composition, from which additional parts of those instruments and devices that are too fragile to leave the studio would grow.

WHAT WERE THE PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES AND INSTRUMENTS YOU USED IN YOUR NEW ALBUM?

As we already said, the core of the album is based on live sequence-driven improvisations recorded in natural environments. We used a compact setup: a step sequencer (Korg SQ-1 or Doepfer Dark Time), a few compact synthesizer modules (Behringer Pro-VS mini, JT-4000 micro, 2XM and Virus Snow), a chain of reverb and delay pedals (Strymon TimeLine delay or Boss Giga Delay, Cloudburst reverb or TC Electronic Hall Of Fame 2 reverb), and a portable recorder (Zoom LiveTrak L6 for synth recording and H4n Pro for field recordings).

However, in each individual session we still had to limit ourselves to only part of this already small setup, so that it would be possible to carry it with us. But this limitation created a wonderful focus, like a lens of attention. Later, in the studio, we added a limited number of additional layers using analogue instruments that are less suitable for outdoor use, such as a Vermona Synthesizer, Nord Lead A1, Moog Slim Phatty, Behringer ARP 2600 and SPL Vitalizer processors. An important principle was to avoid any radical rearrangement, preserving the original flow of the live recordings.

Each session began with a base sequence improvisation, which defined the structure and duration of the piece. At the same time, we recorded environmental sounds, focusing on specific “voices” of nature through deep listening. We don’t try to oppose synthesis to the voices of nature. Instead, we try to express the voice and language of nature through synthesis.

Another very important aspect for us is the melodic content of the sequences. On the one hand, melody is critically important to us – a central melodic phrase that creates the axis of the composition. On the other hand, it is important that this phrase is always presented in the form of a repetitive sequence.

The object of attention in this project is never ideas or discourses, but rather simple states of direct experience of the texture of reality and, through this contact, the recognition of what lies beneath its surface.

Each of us has our own approach to creating sequencer parts. Albert prefers a practice he considers his own form of art-meditation. Being in a place we have chosen for a jam session, he first concentrates on the environment and its atmosphere, focusing on one of the “voices” – the movement of the wind, the oscillation of water, the sound of insects. From the depth of this concentration, the sequencer is launched, starting with just a single step with an initial note. By focusing on what is happening, a certain tempo and the final pitch of the first step are chosen. Then steps or intervals are added one by one, carefully listening to each transition. The sequence is built to completion through this practice of one-pointed attention.

Maria uses a different approach, similar to a Buddhist visualization, where a sound image inspired by the external atmosphere or an inner state is already transformed in the mind into a melodic solution – and it only remains to find its equivalent in reality, reproducing it as precisely as possible.

And finally, field recordings. They are a kind of mediator between the work of the musician and nature, born in the process of creative synergy. The key to this work is attention. It is important that each sonic event of reality will never repeat itself in exactly the same way as we heard and captured it.

For example, this album opens with the sound of the rotation of a heavy wooden wheel of an old watermill. We managed to record it, but it no longer exists in that form – the wheel has been repaired, and now it rotates silently. The album also ends with the track Drift, for which we were lucky to capture an incredibly wide and spatial field of insect sounds.

Our approach is almost entirely hardware-based: no AI and minimal use of software, except for final editing and mixing. Physical interaction with the instruments – knobs, keys, and tactile control – plays a central role in our process.

IN WHAT DIRECTIONS IS YOUR MUSIC CURRENTLY EVOLVING?

Our sound is largely based on analogue synthesis, and this will probably always remain the main constant of our project. However, in future works we plan to add some atmospheric guitar textures, particularly using an e-bow sustainer, and to use field recordings more actively – not as decoration, but as a structural element.

We have also long been interested in exploring the structure and dynamics of birdsong, and we would like to apply this natural approach to shaping sequences and polyrhythmic structures.

We would also like to add that this year we are planning two new musical projects – two upcoming albums that we have already begun working on. The first is an album where each track will be created in collaboration with a different Ukrainian project from various genres. However, all tracks will be primarily created by our project, and we will integrate these different influences into our musical spectrum, between ambient and neo-Berlin School. The collaborators will receive a base sketch of the composition from us and add their own contributions.

The second project is a small tribute album dedicated to one of the most interesting modern Moog instruments – the Subharmonicon. This album will be built around this unique instrument and its specific characteristics.