Chilean bassist, vocalist, composer/improviser Amanda Irarrazabal recorded the sounds inside a couple of printing houses in Santiago during March 2025. A few months later she took these sounds into the studio and improvised along with the playback.

The sounds from the presses are about what one would expect — quietly metallic and mechanical — and oddly hypnotic. At times these sounds acquire something of a liquid sound, a smooth flow over and between which Irarrazabal threads the sounds of water birds and insects. In other sections driving but quiet rhythms are embellished by skittering harmonics or surprising growls.

The titles of these exercises all pertain to the kinds of things that get printed: manifestos, biographies, illustrations, interviews etc. This puts me to grasping at ideas about the sounds of the bass itself being the printed matter, as these sounds at times seem to spill out of the softly whirring apparatus. It also brings up memories of old newsreels of endless late editions spilling out of a press, as a disembodied hand reaches in to retrieve one folded journal and reveal its headline.