"paper cuts", a collection of works published on Glasgow-based label Scatter Archive. Gathers a decade of my listening practice, drawing older and recent works into one resonant surface. Made alongside the years I spent raising an autistic child, these pieces carry traces of confrontation, resilience, survival, and creative transformation. They unfold as a constellation of sonic environments, shaped through attentive listening and the quiet force of intuition.
the struggle of man — my initial contact with listening to the microenvironments and listening through the materials and mediums. Piano melody depicting a broken lullaby, the one that becomes fragmented and repeats in the loop, while the entanglement of noises oppresses but also synchronises with it. Textures built from underwater noise pollution to AM radio frequencies.
Occurrences we usually don’t hear, or do we?
transgressive bodies — a quiet drone holding the space, holding the self-awareness of the mind seeking mend. While movement and the bodily senses listen curiously to the mystical Mediterranean forest, a mountain river rich in minerals builds its volume in irreversible desire to become an ocean. Fluidity does not mean formless.
the box, piano, tadpoles, vent — how can anything in music be more important than microtonalities? Hidden frequencies and sonic traits of a simple cardboard box or a discarded and detuned piano. Tadpoles trapped in the puddle next to the flooded mining pit. A twist of evolution. Life flourishing out of catastrophic errors.
violins, bricks, waves, monument — polyphony of memories, entangled voices bouncing against each other, the density of space. Idling lullaby still following the same emotional path, the loop, a familiar disposition. Monument sounds rich when played with a brick.
paper cuts — wound longer, hurt deeper, annoyingly and stubbornly open and reopen, and reopen again with every attempt to heal them. Lullaby for the restrained world, for children that cannot go outside to play, because it is dangerous, because it can kill them.
Everything repeats.
slip between them almost — a mantra for spiritual growth, seeking wisdom in dreams, poetry and solitude. But finding it among the mosquito larvae and an electric bass drone played with a coffee mixer. Every megastructure might have metal stairs somewhere at the heart of it. Climbing them resonates. Times are gloomy, homes are turned into prisons, and we are forced to listen to each other through the walls and obstacles.
cello & the dripping tap — a magnificent duo, a pandemic dread turned into play.
ocean stream, clarinet, violins, birds — the breath in its various forms. How deep do you breathe? Can you breathe squeezed between the rocks? Or through the bass clarinet mouthpiece? Can you breathe inside the antifascist monument built on the hill where the fierce battle took place, which sacrificed thousands of lives?
Do you remember the times when there was no time for grieving, only the time to fight?
Those times are now.
Released August 31, 2026
all sounds recorded, performed, composed, and edited by Manja Ristić
mastered by Goran Simonoski, La Plant Studio, Belgrade
recording locations: Arran Island, Scotland; Islands of Korčula and Silba, Croatia; River Neretva, Bosnia and Herzegovina; River Esino, Italy; River Schwarze Aist, Austria; the city of Belgrade, Bešenovo lake, Popina antifascist monument, Serbia; the town of Korčula, Croatia
bass clarinet miniatures were played by Vasa Vučković (excerpts from the graphic score Depression for Bass Clarinet by Manja Ristić)
hydrophones and contact mics were built by Jez Riley French
release text and cover art by Manja Ristić
Milica Cvetković
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