British musician Conrad Lambert (aka Merz) and Swiss drummer/sound artist Julian Sartorius first connected in Bern, Switzerland, where Sartorius joined as percussionist for Merz’s album No Compass Will Find Home—praised by The Sunday Times as “a rewardingly challenging folktronic affair” and noted by The Guardian for its “consistently thoughtful songwriting.” Their companion release, Drum & Vocal Renditions, both reduces and radicalizes the material. Sartorius applies the working principles of his audio-visual Beat Diary: no electronic effects, overdubs allowed, every beat physically played—every sound real. The result is primal “uneasy listening”: gongs, mbira, toy-motor grit, and the hush of goat bells create shifting percussive terrains, while Lambert’s untouched vocal tracks act as a compass through the woods. Interludes—incidental sound miniatures—steady the journey across these newly mapped soundscapes. A joint release between Accidental Records (Matthew Herbert) and Everest Records, Drum & Vocal Renditions stands as a striking document of restraint, detail, and fearless re-imagination.