Maria Chavez and Jordi Wheeler present their first recorded release for Takuroku, The Kitchen Sessions: 1-5, 2020, an audio result of a 2 day Recording Residency at the legendary theater The Kitchen in NYC. Due to Covid 19 quarantine restrictions, the Kitchen, like Cafe OTO, has had to temporarily close, but is still providing the venue as a resource for artists to use during this difficult time. The NYC venue offered Maria a 2 day Recording Residency in their main space with an onsite engineer and access to their Steinway B grand piano. Maria presented her new instrumentation set up for the Recording Residency: 4 Numark TTX turntables 4 RAKE Double Needles (8 needles in total invented by Randal Sanden Jr.) 2 Xone DJ mixers She invited one of her regular collaborators, Jordi Wheeler, most recently a member of Amen Dunes, to bring his multifaceted talents on prepared piano, bass guitar, and electronics to the session. These recordings are the result of active listening and improvisation with a new configuration of instruments inside the legendary theater space. The Recording Residency at the Kitchen provided a safe space for Maria, (currently on medical sabbatical while recovering from a rare brain surgery in the Spring of 2019 and who expects to return to public performance in 2022-23) accommodating her current condition while allowing the duo to experiment with her new/ larger set up at lower volumes frequencies and generally reacquaint themselves with each other after over a year and a half of not being able to perform together. Chavez and Wheeler have been performing as a duo since 2015. Their sound piece “Is Made Uneasy” is the intro to Maria’s long form sound piece, Between a Gunshot & a Whisper, as part of Every Time An Ear Di Soud for Documenta14 in Kassel, Germany. Their duo work has been presented by Cruces Espacio de Arte in Madrid, Spain, as part of the Abasement Series at Max Fish, NYC and has aired on KunstRadio, Vienna, 3cR Melbourne, Australia, the Lot Radio, Brooklyn.