L(i)quid Listening: Andrew Tuttle & Darren Cross, Sam Dunscombe

Australian multi-instrumentalist composers and improvisers Andrew Tuttle and Darren Cross
present AT/DC, a debut duo album released on the esteemed Room40 label’s Someone Good imprint on 2 October 2026. Over its eight tracks, on AT/DC Tuttle and Cross respectively blend banjo and acoustic guitar motifs with digital synthesis, processed electronics and manipulated field recordings to create a body of work which is as melodic as it is adventurous.

Darren Cross is one of Australia’s most stalwart leaders of alternative DIY music culture. He first turned heads in the 1990s in his groundbreaking band Gerling. As D.C Cross, over 8 albums Darren has continued to refine and define the notion of ecstatic guitar, a uniquely Australian take on the solo instrumental guitar.

Andrew Tuttle dwells in an exploratory musical world, where the five-string banjo sits serenely and purposefully with shimmering waves of decay and reverberation. Holding a space that is abundant and generous, Tuttle makes outsider music that turns its listeners into insiders. Tuttle has released five solo albums as well as collaborative works with artists including SUSS, Mike Cooper, Padang Food Tigers, and the estate of Michael Chapman, on labels including Room40, Basin Rock, Mistletone, Longform Editions and Bedroom Suck.

Samantha (Sam) Dunscombe is an audio engineer, sound artist, performer, and composer. Her interest in the ways music allows for novel experiences of time has led to explorations in a wide variety of areas: from studio engineering to field recording; spectralism and just intonation to free improv; new complexity to free jazz; computer music to wandelweiser. She has presented work for acousmonium at INA GRM and Archipel Geneva; conducted the opening concert of Maerz Musik in 2019 and performed Eliane Radigue’s music at the Berlin Philharmonie with Klangforum Wien and ONCEIM; been a featured artist at the Sonic Acts Biennale in Amsterdam; performed as a member of Oren Ambarchi’s Carpe Diem; and released work on Mode, Black Truffle, Futura Resistenza.

Sam is an experienced field recordist: Outside Ludlow / Desert Disco (LP, Black Truffle, 2021) combines field recordings with audio taken from scraps of 1/4″ tape found tangled around a cactus in the Mojave Desert. A second album, Two Forests / Oceanic (LP, Black Truffle, 2023), uses field recordings and rational tuning practice to reimagine the music used for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy sessions. Alongside these hybrid works, Sam is also engaged in more traditional acoustic ecology practice, in particular an ongoing ultra-large-scale field recording work “California Grid.” This interest sits within the context of a broader interest in the art of recorded sound, with Sam having worked on a wide variety of recording projects including orchestral and chamber recordings by artists like JACK Quartet and Dal Nient, soloists like Charles Curtis and Marco Fusi, and electro acoustic projects with artists including Miller Puckette, Jules Reidy, and Michelle Lou.