Chiasm is a forthcoming split release pairing one composition each by the Copenhagen-based artist Calum Builder and the composer Nick Martin, working under the name Blue Luminaire[1]. It is issued on the tape label Afvikling Kassetter as both a limited-pressing cassette and a digital release[2], with cassette packaging produced entirely by hand — collaged, typewritten, and assembled without digital design tools[3].
Side A — Calum Builder
Side A carries "I Don't Think You Should Think About These Things," a piece by Calum Builder.
Builder has described the piece as written while imagining his own drowning — watching light shine through the surface above him as memories arrive while he slowly fades. In that imagined state he found himself thinking of his son: the sensation, in the birthing ward, of meeting something inevitable, "like I had been punched in the face," seeing new-born and old man contained within the same moment. Four years on, he writes, that same sense persists.
A crow flies onto a pole, it's sharpening its beak, whilst I'm remembering that the crow has just flown onto the pole, and now the crow is flying away. — Calum Builder, artist statement
He connects this to an earlier memory of standing in the kitchen with his own mother around the age his son is now, caught in a similar feeling of past, present and future arriving and dissolving at once. Telling her about it, she replied: "Calum, I don't think you should think about these things" — the line that gives the piece its title. As Builder puts it, there was nothing she could have done to stop him thinking about these things, just as he cannot stop his son from being who he is.
Side B — Nick Martin
Side B is occupied by Mothernaked, a six-movement work for viola, cello and double bass (with wine glasses) by Nick Martin, composed for and recorded at Koncertkirken.
Background and composition
Martin began conceiving Mothernaked during a residency in Iceland in January–February 2024, after visiting the Sólheimajökull glacier — an encounter with the physical scale and temporal immensity of the ice that turned his attention toward the water cycle more broadly[4]. A kayaking trip in Poland later that year fed into the piece as well, most audibly in its second movement, where slow bow movement across the strings evokes the gentle paddling of a calm river.
The work's six subtitles draw on both physical phenomena and literature, quoting Virginia Woolf's The Waves, Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain, and Roger Deakin's Waterlog. Two passages appear directly in the score's programme note:
Then I looked down; and at my feet there opened a gulf of brightness so profound that the mind stopped... My spirit was as naked as my body. It was one of the most defenceless moments of my life. — Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain
I turned and swam on into the quiet waves — Roger Deakin, Waterlog
The title itself is drawn from Dylan Thomas's poem "Before We Mothernaked Fall," which Martin connects, in a "meandering, watery sort of logic," to the Shepherd passage above[5]. He has also cited Robert Macfarlane's Is a River Alive? as an influence on the piece's dissolving of internal and external, human and more-than-human, experience.
Immediately before the recording of Chiasm in October 2025, Martin spent several days in Dartmoor, swimming in the Dart river amid ancient oak woodland — an experience he has described as continuing to inform the piece's sense of place right up to the point of recording.
Structure
Mothernaked is built from six roughly five-minute "waves":
- Glacial
- I ripple
- I am thrown over you like a net of light
- Edge
- Cascades
- Mouth
Release
Chiasm is being released in stages: the first single, "I Don't Think You Should Think About These Things" (Calum Builder), arrives on 23 October 2026, followed by a second single, "I Am Thrown Over You Like a Net of Light" (Nick Martin), on 30 October, with the full album out on 6 November 2026 through Afvikling Kassetter[7]. It is issued as a limited-pressing cassette and a digital release, available via Gateway Music and Bandcamp; the release will not be distributed on Spotify. See Chiasm (ensemble) for the wider group of musicians associated with the project.
Critical reception
Chiasm has not yet been released to critics or the public, and no reviews are currently available. This section will be updated with critical reception following the album's release on 6 November 2026.
Track listing
All compositions written and performed by the credited artist for each side[7].
| Title | Length | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | I Don't Think You Should Think About These Things | 27:47 |
| Title | Length | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Glacial" | 5:00 |
| 2. | "I Ripple" | 5:00 |
| 3. | "I Am Thrown Over You Like a Net of Light" | 5:00 |
| 4. | "Edge" | 5:00 |
| 5. | "Cascades" | 5:00 |
| 6. | "Mouth" | 5:43 |
| Total length | 58:30 |
Two tracks are being released as singles ahead of the full album: "I Don't Think You Should Think About These Things" (Calum Builder), released 23 October 2026, and "I Am Thrown Over You Like a Net of Light" (Nick Martin), released 30 October 2026.
Personnel
Credits adapted from the release's production notes[7].
I Don't Think You Should Think About These Things
- Tove Bagge, Mika Persdotter — viola
- Oda Dyrnes, Nicole Hogstrand — cello
- Tomo Jacobson, Johannes Nästesjö — double bass
Mothernaked
- Tove Bagge, Mika Persdotter — viola
- Oda Dyrnes, Nicole Hogstrand — cello
- Tomo Jacobson, Johannes Nästesjö — double bass
- Nick Martin, Calum Builder — wine glasses
Technical
- Simon Mariegaard — recording, mixing, mastering
- Recorded at Koncertkirken, Copenhagen, October 2025
Commission and funding
Both works were commissioned by Koncertkirken in 2024, with support from Statens Kunstfond and Dansk Komponistforening / Koda Kultur[6]. Additional financial support for the release came from Dansk Musiker Forbund (kollektive rettighedsmidler), Koda (Udgivelsespuljen), and Koncertkirken, with special thanks credited to Björn Ross.
References
- ^ Artist pages, calumbuilder.com and blueluminaire.com.
- ^ Bandcamp listing, Afvikling Kassetter. Retrieved 2026.
- ^ Artist statement on packaging approach, Chiasm release notes.
- ^ Composer's programme note, "About Mothernaked."
- ^ Composer's programme note, "About Mothernaked."
- ^ Commission credit, Chiasm release notes.
- ^ Chiasm digital press release, Afvikling Kassetter / Blue Luminaire, August 2026.