Duo improvisation can be such a rare space to enter. Creating a common language in an open sea of infinite options, everything stands out. Especially with such fundamental natural instruments as the voice and bass. So what happens if you bring together Maria Laurette Friis, the Copenhagen-based composer, multi-instrumentalist and one of Scandinavia’s unique voices, and the exceptional double bass player Thomas Morgan in an improvised session? Well, it continues for more than three hours and develops into a subtle ‘fantastic’ language of its own. 

Both adept improvisers in their own right, Maria Laurette Friis and Thomas Morgan have specific connections to language. As a sound artist and vocalist Laurette Friis creates her own in the moment, and Morgan speaks fluent Esperanto and is well versed in computer programming languages (his father was a computer science professor). In musical terms they have appeared together on the Copenhagen improv scene a few times (but never performed as a duo) and draw on electronic music, contemporary composition music, Japanese music and free jazz as well. On ‘Colors’ the departure point is as minimalistic as it gets.

“I love the music of Maria Laurette and Thomas Morgan. For me it is the most obvious choice to put them together. They were both playing a part of a symposium night in Copenhagen’s Brorsons Church, and that night a seed was planted for a duo recording a couple of years later. Just the voice and double bass. In the studio they recorded more than 3 hours of music. Everything that happened was beautiful, starting from nothing and opening a door into something new every other minute. It was really moving actually, listening back to every moment and finding into the heart of the improvisations, which in my mind quickly became compositions,” says Jakob Bro, who produced ‘Colors’ in the final process at the time of recording music to ‘Music For Black Pigeons’ with directors Jørgen Leth and Andreas Koefoed.