[spectre] might be of interest -

[Alan Sondheim]

Plaguesong - our new ESP CD - Available for preorder!

http://www.alansondheim.org/plaguesong.jpg

https://alansondheim.bandcamp.com/album/plaguesong Bandcamp
http://www.espdisk.com/Plaguesong CD at ESP-DISK

Plaguesong, our new ESP CD, is ready for preorder purchase or
download. We've been working on this album for months; it's the
most perfect album Azure Carter and I have done. The pieces are
intimate, close-up, intense, all produced under lockdown. There
are 23 interrelated tracks, including songs, pulse-taking, solo
improvisations, and a number of unusual instruments.

For over 25 years, I've offered free music online; now I'm
asking if you would purchase one or another form of this album.
The individual pieces are aesthetically and musically
interlocked, forming a single concept, working through isolation
and epidemic. The music is unique. From the liner notes:

"Plaguesong was produced under quarantine; there's minor
background sound on occasion. Azure Carter and I worked in a
single room, recording with a Zoom H4n, editing in Audition.
I've kept pursuing speed and its issues, but I'm also playing
through isolation, depression, anxiety, and fear. So there are
slow hymn movements, breathing slowly, allowing a kind of
exhaustion to determine the lengths of speeded elements. I don't
know what kind of music this is, but it's a kind that suits me,
and suits Azure as well. It's certainly music that goes closer
to the edge than anything I've done before. We've looked out on
snow and rain, high winds, violent storms, sunny days. We've
known deaths of others. The music sinks into the ground, always
getting closer to the roots that make it sound. The room has
little resonance; I've ordered that. I've also decided not to
name the instruments for the most part; it's the music and space
that's important. It carries a sense of urgency and ululation.
It's part of us."

Bios from ESP: "Alan Sondheim made two albums for ESP-Disk in
the 60s; he returned to ESP in 2014, and this is his third album
since then, the first on ESP to include longtime partner Azure
Carter, and his fifth overall on the label. Sondheim, who has
prolifically spread his recent musical evolution across a
variety of other labels, is an impulsive musical adventurer who
uses his dizzying array of instruments for what their sounds can
contribute to his musical style; he is not unaware of the
traditional performance techniques of his instruments, but he
never lets his musical expression be limited by or to those
techniques. His band Ritual All 70 was included on the notorious
Nurse with Wound list of outsider/avant-garde influences.

Azure Carter is a singer/songwriter living in Providence, RI.
She is a frequent collaborator on music, video, and performance
with her partner, Alan Sondheim. Before moving to Providence,
Carter lived in NYC and performed at numerous venues in the city
and elsewhere, including the 92nd Street Y, Dance New Amsterdam,
The Bowery Poetry Club, Eyebeam, Jack, and Highwire Gallery. She
has recorded six albums; this is her first album with ESP-Disk."

Please consider listening and purchasing - help support our
ongoing musical project of amazing music! And thank you!