Nova Atlantis – Miako Klein & Jia Lim

Welcome to the Sound House — a place of contemplation, curiosity, and discovery. Here, echoes of the Baroque intertwine with the unpredictable shimmer of electronics, as Miako Klein and Jia Lim traverse centuries of sound and imagination.

Drawing inspiration from Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis (1626), the duo reimagines the “sound-houses” he described — laboratories of resonance and invention — as a living metaphor for their own musical practice.

At the heart of Nova Atlantis lies a dialogue between the historical and the experimental, between notation and improvisation, between gut strings and glowing LEDs. A Renaissance harpsichord replica hums beside recorders and baroque violins; beneath, a constellation of cables and pedals shape the music into new dimensions of color and texture.

Klein and Lim explore the Doctrine of Affections through fresh ears, uncovering the rhetorical power of the old masters — Biber, Matteis, Buxtehude, Frescobaldi, Weckmann, and Schmelzer — and reanimating their spirit through the lens of the Stylus Fantasticus. Improvisation flows freely, merging the precision of early music with the spontaneity of modern sound art.

The result is a sonic journey through past and present, where historical gestures resonate with electronic echoes, and the language of the Baroque is refracted through contemporary sensibilities.