In the fading days of autumn in 2010, Taylor Deupree and Marcus Fischer, having become acquainted only earlier that year, set out on the sort of cross-country collaboration typically executed via technology and the web. However, having made a few rough sketches, they became disenchanted by the Internet and the machines between them, and quickly realized that the only way forward was via a plane ticket. Marcus left Portland for New York in February of 2011. The two met face-to-face for the first time, and without any hesitation embarked on 4 days of creating music and photographing the bitter cold and deep snow that covered the state. Buried in a sea of guitar pedals, looping boxes, analog synths, tape recorders, found objects and percussion instruments, Deupree and Fischer settled into the 12k studio and began crafting long passages of music, with no editing, into what would become the single composition on the CD. The creative energy didn't stop in the studio, however, as the frozen bay and snow-covered hills of a park along the Hudson River became the visual backdrop that brought the project to completion. The fruits of their collaboration could not be realized only with a single compact disc, and grew to become a boxed set containing a CD, a 7" record and a booklet of photographs. Titled In a Place of Such Graceful Shapes and limited to only 500 copies, the stark and austere package starts with a black box adorned with a monochromatic photograph of a winter landscape, with the artists' names and the album title only appearing in tiny print on the bottom of the box. Inside, the jacket of the 7" shines in a bright, warm yellow -- the only color in the landscape, provided by waterside grasses -- and contrasts with the black and white photography (taken by both Deupree and Fischer) inside the booklet. A warm grey tone ties everything together on the CD and outer box to balance the color palette.