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15 years after the last Naturaliste release, a CD on the now defunct Belgian label Imvated, the group reunited in Shanghai in January 2019 to rent an entire instrument shop for a night of improvisational recordings and evocative mic placement. Past recordings and live performance utilized thrift store electronics, box fans, amplified phone books (being torn apart), garbage bags of broken wine bottles and a fair amount of audience provocation; Temporary Presence manages to find atonal clamor, buzz and contemporary madness in elegant sources like upright and baby grand pianos, the Erhu and Guzheng.

Additional individual recordings (some instrumental passages, some vocal ramblings, & some street scenes) from Beijing, Oakland, Omaha, Pittsburgh & Shanghai were swapped by the quartet and spliced into the mix along with a hefty amount of audio manipulation. The shadow it leaves is an industrial howl and whine, a pulsing temporary presence. It could be the air conditioner or a man on the street buying cabbage, a head filled with ideas and the feet always out of step.

Naturaliste (pronounced Naturalist) formed in 1998 in Omaha as a minimalist, almost academic drone band, but also a hyper reaction to a local music scene packed with emo and bar bands. Outside elements and influences prevailed, the line-up shifted and personal deconstructions were soon reflected in countless live fiascos and nonperformances in Omaha and around the United States. Light bulbs were busted out while rabid noise freaks rolled around in the broken glass. Fiery arguments with sound engineers often made up entire performances. Hasty exits were made from the stage - if there was one. Friends and family asked: "You travelled several hundred miles to play for three minutes?"

Like many sub-underground bands from the aughts, Naturaliste's discography of cassettes, CDRs, and compilation appearances was prolific and scattered across several dozen labels, but releases mostly served as blown out documents of shows or happenings, recorded with a walkman indiscriminately placed by an amp or bottle of beer. They passed time in the ghost streets of Omaha, until 2005 when all members disappeared elsewhere.

To some they were always just tumbleweeds, a temporary presence.