Microfiche - With Time
Released 12 June 2026, via CD and digital
Max Alduca - electric & acoustic basses
Nick Calligeros - trumpet
Holly Conner - drums & percussion, electronics, production, and piano (track 2)
Sam Gill - alto & soprano saxophones, percussion (track 3)
Novak Manojlovic - piano, keyboards, and electronics
Phillippa Murphy-Haste - clarinet & bass clarinet, viola (track 3)
Sydney collective Microfiche mark a decade together with With Time, a bold third album and their debut on Earshift Music. Moving between acoustic intimacy and immersive electronics, the record captures a band refining its language while opening new sonic terrain.
Recorded by Tim Whitten, With Time distills ten years of deep listening, collective improvisation and evolving identity into a work of striking clarity and quiet intensity.
Two distinct sound worlds can be heard on With Time: alongside the acoustic orientation Microfiche have become well known for, they introduce a new electric sound with prominent use of keyboards, samples and post-production. The band first explored this sonic terrain during their 2021 residency at Redfern's 107 Projects, and in the intervening years they have significantly expanded their incorporation of synths, electric bass, SPDs and electronics into their music, with the new album celebrating the hybrid of the old and new.
Throughout the album, we hear the band's celebrated sense of melodicism, texture and telepathic improvisation, but with the overall mood markedly more subdued than previous releases. Despite the darker tone, there is a streak of optimism heard throughout, heard most prominently on Everything is Everything VIII and the final track Outpouring.
The title With Time permeates the meaning and intention of the record on many levels. The music revels in minimalism and immersive listening, with each track's shape emerging with the passing of time. This attitude can be heard in the tracks Everything Is Everything VIII, a musical exploration of separate elements slowly moving closer until achieving ecstatic unity, and I Sat In One Place Until It Became Many, a sonic meditation in which the details and richness of the sonic landscape reveal themselves gradually over time. In short, the album sees Microfiche present a compelling case for slowing down in an increasingly fast-paced world.
The title is also a nod to the band's longevity: the vitality and adventurousness of their music-making, sustaining a spirit of exploration over their ten-year history and refusing to rest on their laurels.
Microfiche are a long-running collective of six of Australia's most creative and boundary-pushing improvising musicians. Since forming in 2015, Microfiche's individual members have become some of Australia's most cutting-edge and esteemed improvisers, and collectively as an ensemble they have developed their own recognisable aesthetic and a strong shared musical telepathy. Their music emerges from a lineage of Australian acts as diverse as The Necks, Simon Barker and The Australian Art Orchestra, forging a distinctive and celebrated approach all their own. The group folds together beautifully composed and orchestrated compositions, meditative soundscapes, electronics and timbral explorations with post-rock arcs and energetic free-jazz eruptions. This is music with a vanguard spirit.
Recorded by Tim Whitten. Edited by Tim Whitten, Nick Calligeros, Holly Conner and Nick Henderson. Mixed by Tim Whitten. Mastered by Lachlan Carrick. Artwork and design by Ed Boyd.