The Present

An experimental pair operating under the name the Present, and taking that designation at face value, typically generate their material through spontaneous interplay, merging assorted strands of electronic dance music with both ethereal and abrasive sonorities, acoustic instruments, vocal lines, and forward-looking audio collages. Formed by American producer Rusty Santos of Animal Collective and Japanese singer/keyboardist Mina Ohashi of Fayray, the project surfaced in 2008; across the subsequent ten years the duo upheld a consistent allegiance to unfiltered spontaneity and collective creation, as heard on the 2015 Energy & Sound EP series and the 2017 release Break the Dawn.

In its earliest configuration the Present comprised Santos, Ohashi, and White Magic drummer Jesse Lee. Santos, already an established producer who had worked extensively with Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Owen Pallett, Born Ruffians, and additional artists, structured the group’s first recording, 2008’s World I See, as an unbroken stream-of-consciousness session for guitar, keyboards, and drums. Its successor, The Way We Are, appeared the following year and sustained a comparable balance of synthetic and organic distortion alongside extreme sonic interventions.

After a prolonged absence the Present resurfaced in 2015 without Lee, retaining an elemental force while shifting toward a more tactile atmosphere built around greater prominence for Ohashi’s vocals and songs of clearer architecture. The full-length FSG emerged that year on Brooklyn indie Group Tightener Records, accompanied by the first two installments of the self-released Energy & Sound EP series. Following the third volume of that series in 2016, Santos and Ohashi issued the rhythm-driven Break the Dawn EP in April 2017 through the Styles Upon Styles label.