New Work: Janice Lowe

From composer-poet, pianist, and interdisciplinary artist Janice Lowe: Pre-pandemic After years of co-creating musical theater pieces, as well as playing with various bands, I branched out; formed the band Janice Lowe & Namaroon, and was finally on the verge of finishing a self-produced album that had been in the slow cooker. That album, Leaving CLE  songs

Album Review: Michael Formanek Drome Trio – Were We Where We Were

Chordless saxophone trio has always been one of my favorite band formats as both a player and listener. Compared to piano trio or quartet, there’s a great deal of clarity, flexibility, and equality between the players, allowing for subtle as well as dramatic shifts in energy and texture to be made on a dime. The

New Work: Kevin Shea

From drummer Kevin Shea: Hello. Here is a summary of my music-related pandemic activities of the last 2 years. Since March 2020, I have played on thirty record releases comprised of 10 solo albums and another 20 records as sideman or collective. Pandemic solo album releases include Love Letter to My Drum Pad (attestation of

New Work: Ben Stapp

From tubaist and composer Ben Stapp: UQBAR MUSIC – Relaunch It’s been awhile since I’ve done a self release or promoted my label, Uqbar Music, but I was asked to run an article about what’s been going on with me during the pandemic, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do a relaunch

New Work: Jacob Wick

From trumpeter and composer Jacob Wick: The last couple of years have not been good. The most politically, aesthetically, and intellectually interesting thing to me about music and art is intimacy—like, what people do together in a given space. The most profound effect of this particular ongoing pandemic has been a cooling, or in some

New Work: Fritz Welch

From the multi-everything artist Fritz Welch: It’s an interesting question, “What have you been doing during the past two years?”. Coincidentally a few people have asked me the same thing. I have no idea why! However there was a significant event that occurred almost 2 years ago to the day: everything went silent! I don’t

New Work: No Land

From the artist No Land: Rain of Gems in Eye’s Illusory mosaic: Rumination on two years “Seek a tincture of distilled sound, a jeweled tongue & be still of yr shadow mouth Distinction lies in reverence to high order.” Navigation of the street Interior. Mornings of snow light, coffee, window meditations revealing the ship’s mast

New Work: Paul r. Harding

From poet and writer Paul r. Harding: New Directions in Spoken Music: Introducing Juju Seahorse Maybe this blue-brown ship is the ocean and vice-versa. The sky not a sky at all but a mirror of rhythm, of pure sea lyricism. Of that realm of truth that spells no such thing as nowhere as long as

Interview: Alfred 23 Harth

Alfred 23 Harth, also known as A23H, German multimedia artist, bandleader, multi-instrumentalist musician, and composer, recently released a duo album 55 Quintets with Korean trumpeter Choi Sun Bae (originally included in Ballet Music, but very few persons have this CDr).   Soon after extending his work radius from Germany to South Korea, A23H made collage

New Work: Shoko Nagai

Since the beginning of the Pandemic in the early 2020, I had a lot of time to think about what would be my next project. I wanted new compositions to reflect on the state of the world and the time we are living in, but also it was important for me to express my personal