Michael A. Muller, Otto A. Totland

Unna is a collaboration between the composer and producer Michael A. Muller and the Norwegian pianist Otto A. Totland. It is the first release of Ojas Music, the new label of Ojas, the New York hi-fi and design studio of Devon Turnbull. Turnbull is known for building listening rooms, including the one he installed with The Vinyl Factory at 180 Studios in London. The label grew out of the same conviction: a record should be made, cut and heard with attention. The title is the Norwegian word for "away", meant both as the distance between the two musicians and as the inward pull of concentrated work.

Muller and Totland first met in 2008 at the Decibel Festival in Seattle. The idea of working together took shape fifteen years later, in 2023. Muller co-founded Balmorhea, released his early solo work on Deutsche Grammophon and has scored films. Totland is one half of the ambient duo Deaf Center, and his solo piano trilogy was produced by Nils Frahm. For about a year and a half, material travelled between Norway and Los Angeles. Totland played and recorded the piano in Brevik, while Muller produced, recorded and mixed in Los Angeles. Of the eight pieces that emerged, they kept the five that felt cohesive. The piano is close-miked, and its phrases are sparse, left to hang in long decays with very little harmonic movement. Around them Muller places double bass, glockenspiel, Mellotron and Rhodes, used as textural counterpoint rather than as lead voices. Across the two sides, from Eterisk and Tredje to the closing Rolig, the mood stays dark and close. The analogue chain was part of the idea. Frederic Stader mastered the record and cut the lacquers with all-tube equipment in Cologne. It was then plated and pressed on the EMI1400 press at The Vinyl Factory in Hayes.

This vinyl edition, co-released by Ojas Music and The Vinyl Factory, is cut at 45rpm on 180-gram virgin black vinyl. It comes in a full colour uncoated sleeve, hand numbered and limited to 500 copies worldwide.