Places and Pages gathers fifty text scores from Ryoko Akama, performed by an ensemble comprising Akama herself, Cristian Alvear, Cyril Bondi, D’incise, Stefan Thut, and Christian Müller. Each miniature acts as a sonic experiment - many lasting under a minute, some stretching further - where single instructions (“strike one page,” “listen to the laces slowing down,” “roll a ball until it stops”) yield fragile, ephemeral performances. The project, realized in Switzerland, embraces open instrumentation: melodica, guitar, cello, voice, electronics, percussion, and objects combine in unpredictable groupings.​

Akama’s texts operate at the boundary of poetry and music. Their actualizations, as captured on this double album, reveal both the breadth and sensitivity of their readers. The pieces can be playful or meditative; some focus on gesture, others on sound decay or environment. Stefan Thut’s cello may hum in one moment, Alvear’s guitar may flicker in the next, Akama’s melodica and Bondi’s percussion may interleave or dissolve, leaving space for quiet uncertainty. Each track is a field of attention - a performed page, a place mapped in sound and absence.​

More than a collection, places and pages becomes a meditation on the act of listening and the mutability of musical meaning. The sequencing encourages shuffle, casual sequence, or single sittings. Akama’s approach rejects spectacle, reveling instead in micro-events, rare silences, and “found” music conjured from daily materials and communal sensitivity. The album foregrounds community, openness, and everyday sonic detail - an invitation to listen for what’s missing as much as what is present, and to value both as music that lives and breathes beyond the boundaries of the page.​