by Pat Pilch (@apg_gomets)
Hiver recently posted a DM exchange about theirs and Jason Koth’s latest record Offers. In the post, grey bubbles sincerely praise the “album ass album” and ask about artistic inspirations while the quietest moments of “Noh” play in the background. Offers is composed in its pits, peaks, straightaways, and detours. Largely improvised, the record finds Jason Koth and Miles Allen (Hiver) leaning into discovery while balancing slow-burn art-pop with plenty of breathing room.
Offers is the sum of its parts and the product of its surprises. A single turn of phrase can multiply the worlds Koth and Hiver create and maintain. The first surprise comes on “Wheat” where over a steady, distant percussion arrives a tone that sounds like someone yelling underwater. “Like one big fishbowl, the crops were everywhere,” our lonely narrator explains, “I didn’t see any people, there were crops everywhere.” This paradox is at the heart of Offers; to be surrounded by everything alone, nothing together.
Offers’ sequencing mirrors this paradox for optimal pacing. Energies ebb and flow as harsher improvisational moments juxtapose approachable tones and melodies. Take “Noh,” the clarinet-centering pacemaker cut. It arrives after “Market,” Offers’ most song ass song, and clears the air for the attention-demanding “Fulfillment.” Hiver and Koth expertly reach fullness, create space, and make room for the thoughts between.
Hiver’s post explains Offers’ inspiration to “Dig into fears of the impermanence of our world and see what happens when we try to make a comfortable space out of those thoughts.” Offers contains maximalist eureka moments placed in an abundance of space where anything goes. It’s the cohesive result of two musicians working on a string, on a wire, on some shit.