In 1993 – inside an early 20th century building at 2350 Broadway in New York – electronic music pioneers Pete Namlook and Tetsu Inoue met up to record the first in a series of four excellent improvisational ambient albums. According to the sleeve the first album was recorded during two hot days, so presumably it was in the summer of 1993.

Thirty years later, in the summer of 2023, it was definitely a hot summer’s day and I happened to be in New York. I decided it was time to visit the legendary 2350 Broadway address and so I took the subway to the upper West of Manhattan to get a sense of how it was like; a hot summer’s day 30 years ago when the first 2350 Broadway was recorded.

The building, a magnificent Beaux Arts 12-story building, was originally called Bretton Hall and built in 1903 as a residential hotel. In the nineties – when Pete and Tetsu met up here to record – it was used as a residence for artists and musicians. Coming up from the subway into the hot street of Broadway I went to the doorway anxious to see the inside but realized it was not open to the public. A sturdy janitor guarded the entrance and he was not up for talking. I would have to settle on seeing the facade and the entrance and use my imagination for the rest.

That same night I listened to 2350 Broadway in my headphones. Although quite exhausted from walking the whole day on a hot Manhattan I could not fall asleep. I was heavily jet lagged and so instead I went into a kind of semi conscious state where Pete’s and Tetsus’s music blended with my own semi awake dreams of wandering around inside a blown up fantasy version of the 2350 Broadway building, no janitor to stop me. Big halls, dark wooden panels, marble floors and everywhere the music of Pete and Tetsu, drenched in huge reverbs. Obviously it was the best listening experience of 2350 Broadway ever!

Finally I fell asleep and when I woke up again I knew I somehow had to pay my homage to the lost composers of these masterpieces. But how?

Me and my colleague of The Quiet Men make up a duo just like Pete and Tetsu on 2350 Broadway so that’s a start. Maybe we could do an improvised recording session like the original series? Maybe we could recreate the original session parameters by renting a room in an old magnificent early 20th century hotel, on a hot summer’s day, in a large noisy and busy city?

Or what if we would do it the opposite way instead? What if we would find a small unremarkable building in a place where it is not hot, a place where it is not busy,  a quiet place far from all the action? 

Dear listener, this is how the idea behind the making of this album came to be. In January 2023 The Quiet Men loaded the synthesizers into a car and drove up to the snowy Scandinavian Mountains. Far from any city, in a small cabin all by itself and covered in snow out in the quiet woods of Dalarna in Sweden, this homage to Pete Namlook and Tetsu Inoue was recorded. 

It’s been thirty years since the hot sessions of 2350 Broadway in the busy New York summer. We love what Pete and Tetsu did back then, we miss their creativity a lot. Please join us as we celebrate their 30th anniversary by presenting our own inverted but sincere recreation of the 2350 Broadway spirit in the snowy, cold and quiet surroundings of the cabin called – Rörbäcksnäs 33:3.

T.S./TQM