IDM, indietronic producer em eff (Michael Frazer) teams up with vocalist Daaé (Jesse Larson) for a new album entitled We Don’t Know. This digital release is out now on Cloud Collective Records. The album explores atmospheric chiptune landscapes treated with a dose of Daaé’s ethereal, intimately distant vocals.

After his previous album We Speak in Non Sequitur on Cold Tear Records, em eff, who is constantly reinventing his approach to production, was looking for fresh perspective. He found it with Daaé. On their collaboration, “I generally come up to her with some crazy ideas about processing vocals, recording a line of speech that seems to make no sense. She’ll look at me like I’m insane, but once the task is done, she’s happy with the sounds in context,” says em eff.

Recorded primarily in university offices and classrooms during the fall and winter of 2011 in Auburn, Alabama, the album in many ways reflects the dense and opulent colors of fall giving way to the stark, solemn, spaces of winter.

The album begins with the duo’s first collaboration, 1 Up Down, which was born out of frustrations with a long distance relationship. Daaé felt there was significant depth to the lyrics em eff wrote, particularly the line, “I never made a vacant promise”. “I feel like it’s hard to not make vacant promises in this life,” Daaé says. Much of the album adheres to a free association theme, allowing natural moments to surface in an otherwise unnatural, programmed, setting. Spontaneous writing sessions created lyrics such as, “Never test out your philosophy on animals,” found in Were We the Machine. Daaé comments, “It has to do with being brave.”

“We never determined what genre we were working in. It’s slightly sporadic in that sense but cohesive in the tone the album as a whole conveys,” em eff explains. The album’s title, We Don’t Know, reflects the uncertainties and volatility of the world right now both in practical terms such as how to make a living in this economy, to artistic realization. To illustrate this, the cover art uses Zener cards, which test ESP.

The album is available now on iTunes and every major digital music retailer.

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Music: http://cloudcollectiverecords.com/audio/01-em_daae-1-Up_Down.wav