With New Home, due April 2026 on Protomaterial Records, Pol Tonin introduces a debut that feels less like arrival than quiet transformation. The project is the experimental folk alias of Vienna-born multidisciplinary artist Daniel Pabst, whose work has long moved between photography, composition and performance. The album follows two advance singles, beginning with “Dear Pol” in February and a second release in March.
Pabst’s creative life has often been shaped by formal inquiry. His architectural photography, exhibited in cities including London, Vienna and New York, has consistently examined the tension between the universal and the site-specific, between structures that appear globally legible yet remain bound to place. That sensibility carries into New Home, where space, memory and emotional geography become central concerns.
What began as an abstract meditation on architecture gradually shifted into something more personal. During the writing of the record, Pabst learned that he was about to become a father. The news quietly altered the emotional centre of the album. Questions of inheritance, unfinished histories and what is carried into new chapters began to surface. The result is a record shaped less by concept than by reckoning.
“Dear Pol”, the opening single, introduces that change in focus. Recorded by Pabst in his country house, temporarily transformed into a makeshift studio, the track draws together his background in improvised music and a refined instinct for songwriting. Field recordings and live instrumentation give the music a sparse, tactile intimacy. Nothing feels decorative. The atmosphere is restrained, but emotionally exposed.
Across New Home, Pabst performs all instruments himself, building songs that sit between experimental folk and private confession. There is structure in the arrangements, but also fragility. The record often feels as though it is discovering its own form while moving through it.
That tension has always defined Pabst’s broader practice. Alongside Pol Tonin, he has worked across jazz, experimental composition, opera and electronic music, performing throughout Europe and the United States. Here, those histories are distilled rather than displayed. New Home ultimately becomes a record about rebuilding. Not beginning again, but understanding what remains, what must be released, and what can finally be carried forward.
Featured Image: Artist Supplied
