Jim White and Marisa Anderson share an abounding appetite for musical exploration. White, as a member of Venom P Stinger, Dirty Three, and Xylouris White, is well known for his creative and idiosyncratic drumming. His singular abilities have also led to collaborations with Cat Power, PJ Harvey, and Bill Callahan among others. Anderson’s prolific output as a solo performer, her mastery of traditional folk and blues forms and her abilities to make them entirely her own has established her as one of the most exciting and forward-thinking guitarists of the last decade. White and Anderson’s considerable technical skills are used in the most inventive and unconventional manner on their debut duo recording, The Quickening (Thrill Jockey).

White and Anderson are both instrumentalists whose voices are unmistakable and spellbindingly lyrical. Anderson unravels guitar traditions from across the globe into atmospheres all their own through improvisations and melodic lines while White implements an array of sticks, brushes, and techniques that imbue each rhythmic passage with its own distinct personality.

The idea of a collaboration developed while on the road together in 2015, Anderson playing solo and White playing with Xylouris White. Their first recording session began at the Portland studio Type Foundry in late 2018, where the duo initially agreed to meet and improvise and record. The duo later headed to Mexico City and into Estudios Noviembres, a time capsule of a studio from the 70’s that had been largely closed before some young engineers took it over. The duo did not rehearse or perform together prior to the recording sessions; as White puts it, “it’s good to suspend disbelief at this stage of playing.”