The meeting of various creative minds associated with the Kranky Records family resulted in the slow-to-form entity that came to be known as Anjou with the release of their first self-titled album in 2014. The trio was formed by former members of Labradford -- Mark Nelson and Robert Donne -- along with percussionist Steven Hess. All three members of the trio had been active since Labradford's quiet slip into a hiatus around 2001, Nelson working under the Pan American moniker, Donne playing in Cristal, and Hess playing with Fennesz, Locrian, and others. The trio spent four years crafting the meticulously edited blend of organic and electronic sounds of their debut, combining a web of modular synthesizers, live instrumentation, and dense programming for the dreamy and foreboding fields of instrumental sounds that made up their debut. Three years later, the duo returned with Epithymia. ~ Fred Thomas