New minimalist duo Snow Palms make music by beginning not with a concept, but with a process. Their contemporary classical sound world takes elements from 1960s Minimalism, the sound palettes of exotica and ambient, and the traditional instruments of Africa and Southeast Asia. At their core, Snow Palms excavate kinetic and resonant architectures that oscillate between the acoustic and the electronic; in the patterns and processes of systems in tandem with the vibratory energy of the universe. 

Snow Palms began as the solo project of multi-instrumentalist David Sheppard (State River Widening, Ellis island Sound), and is now expanded to a duo with arrival of equally multi-faceted musician and producer Matt Gooderson (Infadels). Sheppard began the project in 2011, subsequently releasing two albums: 2012’s Intervals, which defined the project’s pointillist textures and idiophone palette, followed, in 2017, by Origin And Echo, which approached ideas of mirroring and rebounding in abstracted concept and concrete processes. Gooderson joined Snow Palms soon after its release, when the pair began spending time together in the studio. Initially intending to undertake purely exploratory experiments, their playing together quickly coalesced into a distinctive sound that Sheppard recognised as a continuation and development of his Snow Palms signature. He invited Gooderson to ‘join the band’, and they released a bold remix of Village Green labelmate composer Matt Dunkley’s ‘Cycle 12’ for RSD 2018, followed by the double A-side EP Everything Ascending in 2019. They performed their first live gig at the prestigious Purcell Room at London’s Southbank Centre last July, before lockdown scuppered plans for more shows. 

David Sheppard is a musician, teacher and writer, the author of acclaimed biography On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno. He is a lecturer and music journalist (regularly contributing to MOJO, among other magazines) and records solo under his own name. He named Snow Palms after a painting by his late father that depicted downtown Los Angeles in a blizzard. 

Matt Gooderson is a composer, producer and academic, who wanted to be a musician since being a child, after his experience growing up in a music loving family with his sister Sara who was disabled, with whom he bonded through music. He later formed the electro-rock group Infadels, and toured the world for a decade, before reclaiming a more grounded life in Ashdown Forest and studying creativity. As well as Snow Palms, Gooderson is now head of Popular Music at the University of Westminster, makes solo records and runs a podcast on creativity called Play in the System.

In the augmented Snow Palms, Gooderson harnesses the improvisational potential of modular synths, and fuses it with Sheppard’s love of acoustic mallet instruments. Locked to their mutually agreed methodology and philosophy – that their music is not so much concept driven as process driven – they have prised apart a distinctive space between the acoustic and the electronic. They play with the uncanny feel of acoustic instruments made to approximate electronic sounds, and how the rigid rhythms of electronic instruments might be programmed to sound organic. “That liminal sweet spot between two worlds of sound has some sort of inherent meaning and poetry, and that’s where we always want to get to,” explains Sheppard. 

Their sound frequently calls to mind the interlocking patterns of gamelan and the resonances of shakuhachi. They are inspired by Midori Takada, Caterina Barbieri, Underworld, Brian Eno, Hannah Peel and more specifically, Philip Glass’ Music In 12 Parts and Music With Changing Parts, and Steve Reich’s Music For Mallet Instruments Music and Organs. Gooderson says that their influences shape part of their core philosophy, which asks: If you were to pick the baton up from the minimalism of the 1960s, where would you go with it? Their answer, is to Snow Palms. “We know we have reached our destination when we become listeners to our own music,” says Gooderson. Sheppard concurs: “It’s about feeling music as a kind of place; music as a location. Snow Palms music offers a feeling of being transported. It’s a search for the sublime. I think we’re getting there!”