Based between Berlin and Köln, The Hollows is an improvising "percussion" trio consisting of Nick Dunston, Weston Olencki, and Etienne Nillesen. Their music is primarily improvised, using specific electroacoustic setups, unorthodox instrumental technique, and idiosyncratic orchestration to conjure focused sonic textures from a variety of acoustic and electronic media. Using the combination of two electronically prepared banjos and extended snare drum, their practice weaves together diverse influences of free improvisation, contemporary music, Appalachian traditional music, free folk, computer music and noise to create a unique and captivating group identity and emphatic visual presence. Gestures collide, loop, and stretch to a standstill - creating multidimensional soundscapes which challenge, entrance, and envelop the listener.

Our debut album, “Inner Century”, released by Italian digital imprint SUPERPANG.

Weston Olencki is a musician, composer, and sound artist from South Carolina, currently based in Berlin. Their current work is centered around questions of instrumental music and its contexts/constructs, various mediated practices of listening and improvisation, and the technological, material, and cultural histories of rural space/time. In recent projects these themes have manifested in fusions of experimentalism and noise with American traditional musics; site-specific sound work engaging with land and local histories of New England; the use of artificial (audio) intelligence, neural synthesis, and machine listening processes; and a continued extension of the limits of instrumental performance on brass and wind instruments more broadly.

They have been fortunate to present work at the Borealis Festival, ISSUE Project Room, REDCAT, Ghent Jazz Festival, philharmonie luxembourg, Black Mountain College, the American Academy in Rome, Roulette Intermedium, and the OPTION series, and was awarded the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis from the 2016 Darmstadt Ferienkurse. Various recording projects have been released by HatHut, Out of Your Head and Tripticks Tapes, Sound American, Carrier, New Amsterdam, Clean Feed, Lobby Art, Dinzu Artefacts, SUPERPANG, Notice Recording, and upcoming releases on Astral Spirits and Infrequent Seams Their first solo brass release, SOLO WORKS, featured on Bandcamp Daily’s Best Experimental Music of 2020.

Nick Dunston is an acoustic and electroacoustic composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist. Called an “indispensable player on the New York avant-garde" (New York Times), his performances have spanned a variety of venues and festivals across North America and Europe. His work explores notions of ancestral memory, materiality, embodiment, decolonization, and Afro-surrealism. As a collaborator he has worked with artists such as Marc Ribot, Ches Smith, Lucrecia Dalt, Mary Halvorson, Imani Uzuri, Ingrid Laubrock, Tyshawn Sorey, Anna Webber, Amirtha Kidambi, Craig Taborn, and Vijay Iyer. In addition to four studio albums released under his name, Dunston has been commissioned by artists and organizations such as Bang on a Can, JACK Quartet, A L'ARME! Festival, Ex-Aequo, Bass Players for Black Composers, Tenth Intervention, Johnny Gandelsman, T R O M P O, Maggie Cox, Joanna Mattrey, Ekmeles, and Joy Guidry. In 2019 he was awarded the Van Lier Fellowship by Roulette, which supported the creation of the trans-media song cycle La Operación, the double bass quintet piece The Floor is Lava!, and his debut studio album, Atlantic Extraction. In 2020 in collaboration with Dogbotic Labs, he co-created “Ear Re-training”, a music composition course focusing on media-bending experimental techniques and concepts. He, along with Katherine Young were featured as the first Artists-in-Residence with Wet Ink Ensemble for the 2021-2022 season, where Dunston created his 14-piece ensemble work Reverse Broadcast, himself performing on double bass, processed radio, and improvised Conduction. Dunston currently resides and maintains an active presence in both the Berlin and New York experimental music scenes.

Etienne Nillesen is a Cologne based performer, improviser and percussionist. He works internationally as a soloist, and in group and collaborative settings.

Mostly only using a single snare drum, he explores and pushes the limits of the natural acoustics of the instrument using conventional playing techniques as well as extended techniques, especially engaging with materials through horizontal movements and friction to explore their properties.

Being interested in phenomena like temporality, impermanence and minimalism, he creates sonic spaces that convey sincerity, balance, austerity and naturalness, authentically combining imagination, intuition and sensitivity. Etienne uses a minimal approach to the instrument with the maximum outcome of complexity in sound. These complex, detailed, and mostly subtle sonorities require a great deal of concentration for the performer as well as the listener, making the act of listening just as important as the production of the sounds.