Due Matte is an enticing album for me in several respects. It initially caught my eye due to the presence of Valentina Magaletti, a renowned contemporary percussionist with an impressive resume and a recent Noise Not Music favorite with Sulla Pelle. Joining Magaletti on this release is Gnod member Marlene Ribeiro, with whom I’m much less familiar. The first document of their collaboration also features one of my favorite examples of those bizarre medieval paintings you see cropping up as macros every now and then; the framing of the two women, the homogeneity of the color palette, and the emphasis on the rich purple background makes it a both humorous and poignant selection for the cover design. Needless to say, by this point I (and hopefully you) am all in to see what the hell is going on with Due Matte. The label describes it as an “exercise in tropical concrete [sic],” and there’s definitely some choice processing going on to render these whimsical sounds so ambiguous and alien, but for the most part I feel like I’m hearing what’s really going on between the two musicians: just some very well curated percussion interplay, occasional vocals, possibly a bit of layering to produce soft intimate worlds of wonder. Certain tracks, however, display the beautiful results when more dissective techniques are used, like the calming drift phases of “Big Circle, Small Circle.” This hits a similar spot as Plastic Moonrise’s Papier Mâché: mysterious but always comforting, lightweight yet full of depth, perfect for sluggish afternoons.