Sunroof is the new collaboration from two electronic music pioneers, industry vets and old friends: Daniel Miller founded Mute Records some of the label’s earliest releases were for his own music, including The Normal’s classic “Warm Leatherette” and Silicon Teens’ Music for Parties; Gareth Jones is a renowned producer, engineer and mixer who has worked records by Depeche Mode, Erasure, Wire, Einstürzende Neubauten, Diamanda Galas, Mogwai, MGMT, and more.

As its title suggests, their album Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1 features works that were entirely improvised using modular systems. “With modular systems, you can just go on and on forever and never actually complete anything,” notes Miller. “Sometimes that’s okay – part of the joy of a modular is that you can just keep going indefinitely. But with this we were keen to actually finish something, so setting that timeframe became a really important rule for us.”

There were a few other ground rules, too. “We said we’d work in a number of different physical spaces but always together, in the same room,” says Jones. “We were keen to do shorter pieces because we were both very inspired by Chris Carter and Martin Gore’s electronic music projects, where the pieces were very concise and compact.”

Sunroof has shared the album’s opening track, “1.1- 7.5.19 (Edit),” which is dark and droning but also propulsive and compelling. Watch the visual for that below.

Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1 will be out May 21 via Mute’s Parallel Series.

Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1 tracklist
1.1 – 7.5.19
1.2 – 30.5.19
1.3 – 30.5.19
1.4 – 18.6.19
1.5 – 9.7.19
1.6 – 7.5.19
1.7 – 30.5.19
1.8 – 2.3.19