Effective period / Period of releases: 2021

Members: Natalie Chami, Whitney Johnson

Natalie Chami and Whitney Johnson perform as a duo under the name Damiana (5). Both artists have built their own catalogs as multi-instrumentalist improvisers and composers in the Chicago experimental music scene, exploring the intersections between ambient, electro-acoustic improv, and more legible songcraft based around their voices and their work with synths and electronics -- all filtered through their backgrounds in classical performance and education. Chami’s solo recordings under the TALsounds moniker have appeared on labels such as NNA Tapes, Ba Da Bing!, and Moog’s own imprint, and her collaborative projects include the trio Good Willsmith with Hausu Mountain co-founders Max Allison and Doug Kaplan. Johnson has released a series of solo LPs as Matchess on the label Trouble in Mind, and performs with Laura Callier (Gel Set) as the duo Simulation (6)— along with contributions to recordings and live performances by Ryley Walker, Circuit Des Yeux, Bitchin Bajas, and Tortoise’s 20th anniversary performances of TNT, among other artists. After meeting in the early 2010s, Chami and Johnson embarked on multiple US tours together, and their informal duo collaborations naturally crystallized over time into the Damiana project.

Chami and Johnson’s partnership in Damiana makes the most out of their striking similarities in performance style and technique. Both musicians perform with an arsenal of hardware synths, keyboards, loopers, and effects pedals, and have come to be so comfortable with their chosen instruments that they can easily generate spontaneous compositions complete with gorgeous vocal lines and complicated instrumental backdrops at a moment’s notice. In a vast sea of improvised, one-take electro-acoustic music, Chami and Johnson stand out as bastions of technical prowess and nuanced emotional storytelling. Both look at solo performance with the full frequency range in mind, switching between everything from swooning melodies in the highest vocal octave, to short percussion patterns that clatter along as gentle rhythmic frameworks, to amorphous electronic noise, to bursts of low-end that steer their sessions into new harmonic configurations. All these strategies permeate the music of Damiana, effectively doubling the palette of sounds at their disposal. The resulting sessions can sound at times like one mind with two voices and four hands, with complementary vocal melodies and synth phrases pouring out in unison. In other moments, Chami might leap into a cascading synth solo that evokes Terry Riley, or Johnson might start looping majestic layers of her viola into the mix, while their partner works to flesh out the swirling landscape of textures and harmonies behind them.