Hocketus is a new album for violin, cello, and electronics by Gage Salnikowski and Nathan Krahn.

Built around a series of original MaxMSP patches, each piece creates a different relationship between the performers. Sometimes the electronics force one instrument to silence the other. Sometimes both players work together around a single sine wave. Other times the system latches onto pitches, interrupts signals, or shifts the balance of control between the musicians. Every performance is improvised within these imposed rules.

The album explores how relationships are shaped by the systems we exist within. Rather than treating improvisation as complete freedom, Hocketus places the performers inside changing environments that influence cooperation, conflict, hierarchy, and negotiation. Those same questions extend beyond the music, asking listeners to consider the social, political, and cultural frameworks that shape our own interactions.

Musically, Hocketus sits somewhere between noise, free improvisation, drone, and contemporary experimental music, drawing inspiration from artists such as John Zorn, Henry Flynt, and Kali... more credits releases September 25, 2026

Nathan Krahn - Cello Gage Salnikowski - Violin

Recorded during winter 2025 by Savant Flâneur at Treaty 1, Winnipeg, Manitoba Mixing by Savant Flaneur Mastering by Riley Hill (No Fun Studio)

Photograph on cover by Mr. Phelan Graphic design by Mark Smith

Music by Nathan Krahn and Gage Salnikowski Publishing: Savant Flâneur

577 Records is an independent record label based in Brooklyn, New York operating since 2001

577 Records Brooklyn, New York www.577records.com ©+℗ 2026 license

Savant Flaneur's Psst! was an interactive sound, poetry, sculpture and video installation for Nuit Blanche Winnipeg last year. Now available to stream and dubbed to cassette tape in four parts.

Collectively constructed sound artwork built of secrets. Psst! bridges the quiet interiority of private space with the shared experience of public expression. It provides an opportunity for public vulnerability, an agnostic form of confession, encouraging the profound sense of sonder—the realization that every person leads a life as real and complex as one's own.

As each secret dissolves into a communal sea of inter-connected voices and experiences, the work invites participants to enter a space of mutual recognition. In that space, speech becomes an act of surrealist illumination, bringing hidden thoughts to dim but constant light. Vulnerability becomes an act of generosity contributing to the complete experience of the artwork. Audience members consider how these whispers are stories that connect us.