On And On And Off by Marla Hlady & Christof Migone
12 new tracks from Marla Hlady and Christof Migone released on as a cd and DL from Cronica based in Oporto, Portugal.
Both Marla and Christof have been collaborating since 2015 and this album is one of the finest points of their work together.
As usual there is an interesting concept that is a foundation of the output. In this case – it is an interesting invitation aimed at the listener – to ponder on the question of work-life balance, commuting and everything that is related to that question.
Marla and Christof invited collaborators to record all sorts of sounds that are related to this process – voices, field recordings, noises etc.
The effect is pretty interesting array of sounds – orchestrated, assembled and composed together in a way that makes you think of many things.
How cost effective has our lives have become? How life has become some sort of a function of survival? What is it exactly to live, to survive, to exist these days?
An interesting tableaux of different sounds with an idea that begs you to ask yourself and re-evaluate what is important?
From home to work. From work to home. You get on your feet, on the bus, train, plane, bike. You get off your feet, off the bus, train, plane, bike. You walk, you ride, you travel. Sometimes you arrive on time. Often you are running late. Transportation gets you from one place to another. From point A to point B. Arrivals and Departures. Movements with purpose. Kinetics with intent. But sometimes you get on and it goes on and on and on and on and on. It feels like you might never get off. We are destined to destinations. A life on transit, a life in transit.
Each participant in the On And On And Off (OAOAO) choir was given 12 prompts. They could each interpret them in their own way (see www.cronicaelectronica.org/250/ for the prompts). The main focus of the prompts was their commutes from home to work and back. We asked them to not only listen as they travelled, but also sound their soundscape, voice their listening, and make noise with their experience.
From the typical scenario involving traffic congestion to the transition from bedroom to home office, work is a mindset. What is your relationship between life and work? How is your work-life balance? With the recordings the OAOAO choir sent us we then playfully searched for the underlying rhythms that drive us all—drive us to work, drive us home, drive us around the bend.
Marla Hlady & Christof Migone each have long-standing individual artistic practices and started to collaborate in 2015. Their joint projects combine pre-existing solo concerns and recurring strategies into works that accent site and sound space. They have performed at Ftarri (Tokyo), Experimental Intermedia (NYC), Arraymusic and Electric Perfume (both in Toronto) and have installed work at ArKO Museum (Seoul), Errant Bodies (Berlin), Glenfiddich Gallery (Scotland), Produit Rien (Montreal), and Christie Contemporary (Toronto).
Marla has an MFA from York University in Toronto and is tenured faculty at the University of Toronto. Christof has an MFA from NSCAD (Halifax) and a PhD in Performance Studies from NYU and is tenured faculty at the University of Western Ontario.
credits
releases June 23, 2026
Recordings by the OAOAO choir: Christa Eder, Hans Groiss, Claudia Gschweitl, Monika Kalcsics, Ulrike Leitner, Karin Linortner, Susanna Niedermayr, Ursula Scheidle, Anna Soucek, Alexander Tschernek, Mia Kirsty Weisz, Elisabeth Zimmermann, Stefanie Zussner.
Mixing by Christof Migone (1–8, 11–12), Marla Hlady (9¬–10).
Mastering by Miguel Carvalhais.
Images by Marla Hlady.
Commissioned by Kunstradio (ORF Vienna).
Thanks to Elisabeth Zimmermann, Miguel Carvalhais, and all the OAOAO choir participants.
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