Maier spent her life making photographs alongside her work as a nanny, particularly on the streets of Chicago and New York, producing hundreds of thousands of stunning photos that she … stored in boxes. And that brought her worldwide fame only posthumously, after they were discovered at auction. 

Discovering a shared passion for Maier’s work, Harald Walkate and photographer/saxophonist Tom Beek agreed that what appealed to them, apart from the evocative aesthetics of the (predominantly) black-and-white images, was the fact that Maier seemed to photograph mainly for herself. They draw parallels between Maier’s creative practice and their own: using music as a means of making sense of the world, and hopefully making it a little more beautiful.

Intricately arranged for octet, the record’s sound is compositionally and texturally complex. Lush arrangements for the four part woodwind/brass section and the interplay of piano and vibraphone provide a dense and colorful yet subtle harmonic palette over which Walkate’s thoughtfully written melodies and expressive improvisations unfold.

Like Maier, the musicians – following the composer’s lead – put themselves in a position to ‘capture’ reality. Not passively, but with imagination; from the desire to participate in it themselves, to be of significance too. Not just to see it as it is but also to see it better than it is. Perhaps this is the ideal that makes an artist: the expectation that reality can be made (more) beautiful, by rearranging and reshaping it yourself.