Indweller is the new collaborative duo of Toronto-based multidisciplinary audiovisual artist and producer Ilyse Krivel (eternalrealworld) and multi-instrumentalist Colin Fisher. Living Gem, their remarkable debut, showcases their complementary approaches, while probing the very nature of collaboration. Krivel recorded Fisher performing saxophone, guitar, and drum parts, and then constructed each song out of those building blocks, arranging and manipulating the sounds while adding her own electronic flourishes. The three songs that comprise the record are structured chronologically, beginning with the duo’s first composition. Close listening reveals another structure, a journey toward a kind of interiority that moves from the pure physicality of “Vessel”—with its cascades of drums, guitar, and sax—to the title track’s pulsing cycles breathing alongside coils of dizzying sax, and ending with “Pneuma,” where Krivel abstracts Fisher’s sound sources into a humming ethereality.
It's worth noting that the “indwelling” articulated in this instrumental work isn’t a path toward solitude or attempt at shutting oneself off from the world; ultimately, Krivel and Fisher are exploring how inward focus and attention to one’s own subjectivity can inspire creative expression. Living Gem is hopefully the beginning of a long and rich poetic dialogue between these two artists.
