Jeremiah ChiuEdge Conditions
Edge Conditions' is the new album by Chicago born and raised, longtime Los Angeles based composer, synthesist, and multi-media artist Jeremiah Chiu.
Following three electro-acoustic duo albums with violist Marta Sofia Honer (one in collaboration with late legend of minimalist music Ariel Kalma) and three heavily-fused trance-jazz LPs with his co-led quintet SML, 'Edge Conditions' settles Chiu into a world of densely layered, tightly composed electronic music deviations in the vein of the YMO spinoffs, Arthur Russell 12-inch mixes, Yasuaki Shimizu, classic Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, or Art of Noise. Outsider deconstructions spun through the dance/chill cycle and lovingly rebuilt on California land. There’s an emotional, energetic arc here — a shining display of Chiu’s range and depth as both a composer and producer, in which every facet of his collaborative work and sonic personality feels represented without force.
Chiu’s previous solo album, 2023’s 'In Electric Time', was a first-thought-best-thought album recorded at the Vintage Synthesizer Museum in LA, and offered a narrower glimpse into his solo process and sound, essentially acting as a collection of studies & experiments à la Raymond Scott's essential 'Manhattan Research Inc'. The goal was for the work to be immediate, improvisational, and born of quick decision making. The operation was ultimately simple: Jeremiah Chiu, synth practitioner, finding his way around a very impressive collection of analog synthesizers, recording said findings to 8-track tape.
'Edge Conditions' expanded the aim of that approach to make room for a larger scope of vision, developing under a more nuanced series of self-imposed boundaries, limitations, and clarifying frameworks meant to help connect the threads of the disparate artistic worlds Chiu inhabits in a more patiently-considered way. The music was mostly written and recorded during February and March of 2026, with the composer operating both in isolation and with a select team of musical comrades, while also incorporating live collaborations, field recordings, and audio sketches going back years.