Almost one year after the release of ‘vision of contentment’ – a quietly radiant collaboration between pianist Joep Beving and cellist/electronic artist Maarten Vos – the duo share two previously unreleased pieces that trace the project back to its very origin.

Titled ‘Friends making music’, this release brings together the earliest ideas the two artists created. During the stillness of the pandemic, they found a way to make music together despite being apart. From their respective studios, Beving and Vos improvised a delicate, beautiful piece that reflected the surreal moment they were living through. The result, ‘Improvising on a Distance’, was initially shared as a split-screen video on YouTube: a quiet musical conversation across space, born from a long-held desire to collaborate and made possible by the unexpected pause the pandemic offered.

That small, spontaneous moment planted the seed for something more. After the world reopened, Beving and Vos began working together in person, visiting each other’s studios throughout 2023. Ideas flowed, but it wasn’t until a pivotal week in July, in Bilthoven, that ‘vision of contentment’ truly found its form. That week, their dear friend, and Joep’s manager, Mark Brounen was preparing to leave this world. His grace in facing the end became a silent presence in the room, shaping the atmosphere in which the music was born.

Around a year after the album’s release on LEITER, and performances across Europe and Asia, Beving and Vos share the two songs that started it all — a parting gift, two pieces that return to the beginning, when it was just two friends making music.