Detailed information about this music, including the scores for these pieces, is included in a pdf you will receive in the zip file you download from bandcamp.

I will donate all sales from this album to the South Texas Human Rights Center, a small nonprofit working to prevent migrant deaths and support families of those who have gone missing in the desert near the Texas/Mexico border. STHRC is one of the subjects of the documentary film "Missing In Brooks County," which I scored in 2020. More information is available at:
southtexashumanrights.org
www.missinginbrookscounty.com

About The Performers

Alec Toku Whiting
Track 1, “The End Of The Day”

Alec Toku Whiting is a composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist based in Boston, Massachusetts. Primarily a koto player, his improvisatory approach is rooted in his experiences studying modern music for the instrument while growing up in Yokohama, Japan. His technique foregrounds the manipulation of timbre and its relationship to physical gesture. As a composer Alec’s work results from the investigation and synthesis of abstract formal processes and intuitive structures in pursuit of a multiplicitous musical event. His music has been performed in the United States, France, Spain, and Australia and he has collaborated with musicians including Mark Fell, the Mivos Quartet, Wendy Eisenberg, Ted Reichman, Lina Tullgren, and Jan Williams. soundcloud.com/alec-toku-whiting

Isabel Crespo Pardo
Track 2, “Pastoral”
Track 7, “The End Of The Day”

Isabel Crespo Pardo (she/her) is a Boston-based latinx vocalist, composer, and improviser drawing on jazz, experimental and chamber traditions to create poetic work. Fueled by curiosity, Crespo focuses on developing new work with artists nationally and internationally. Beginning from the idea of music as the organization of people and ideas, she is interested in reimagining the construction of artistic spaces, and is committed to fostering collaborations devoid of oppressive dynamics. Her current projects include Chatterbox (experimental vocal trio), Both of Us (jazz-influenced duo), Haz Caso (sound collage duo), and Naming the Self (literary collaboration). She also organized Streamfest, a five-week virtual concert series including 63 artists representing 14 countries, and founded La Merienda Virtual, an inclusive virtual forum encouraging community education through intimate and difficult conversations with fellow latinxs. Her latest collaboration, RE-CONNECTING is a live and virtual interactive performance and art book, set to premier in Summer 2021, highlighting the importance of presence during the global pandemic. Crespo received an undergraduate degree in Jazz Studies from the University of North Texas, and is pursuing a graduate degree in Contemporary Improvisation at the New England Conservatory. isabelcrespo.com

Ted Reichman
Track 3, “River Music”

Ted Reichman was born in Aroostook County, Maine in 1973. He began studying jazz piano at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School in 1987 and went on to study experimental music and ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University with Alvin Lucier, Sumarsam, and his most important early mentor, Anthony Braxton. At Braxton’s urging, Reichman began playing accordion, the instrument that would become the basis of his work in music. After beginning his professional career with Braxton while still a student, Reichman moved to New York City where he worked with a panoply of musical greats in styles ranging from improvised music and jazz to rock and roll and various forms of Jewish music. In addition to his work with Braxton, which includes the first recordings and performances of “Ghost Trance Music,” he is best known for his ten-year-plus tenure with John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet. He also founded the music series at alt.coffee which would evolve into Tonic, one of the world’s most crucial venues for avant-garde music. He has been on the faculty of the New England Conservatory for over ten years and spent four years as an Assistant Professor of Film Scoring at Berklee. He currently lives outside Boston where he records, produces and mixes records and composes music for films. His essays and poems have appeared in Can We Have Our Ball Back, The Brooklyn Rail, and The New York Review of Books. www.tedreichman.com

Aaron Edgcomb
Track 4, “Pulse”

Aaron Edgcomb (he/they) is a composer, drummer, and percussionist from Reno, NV, currently based in Brooklyn, NY whose work appears in such contexts as improvisational music, jazz, “new music”, noise, and song. At the forefront of Aaron’s artistic practice is examining how music creates and changes social and political identities. Aaron has performed in and composed for many ensembles including: the avant-rock band Clak; the solo percussion and electronics project REA; The Gown of Entry an improvisational trio that incorporates poetry; and the improvising hardcore trio Trigger. They have collaborated with such artists as John Zorn, Ted Reichman, Chris Williams, Lisa Hoppe, Adam Dunson, Joanna Mattrey, The Ladles, and Anthony Coleman. Aaron holds a B.M. in Jazz and Percussion from the University of Nevada, Reno, where his studies ranged from music to gender and identity, as well as a M.M. in Contemporary Improvisation from the New England Conservatory. Currently, Aaron is composing new works for solo and ensemble performance (and occasionally poetry and prose) and teaching percussion/composition/improvisation. aaronedgcomb.com

Wendy Eisenberg
Track 5, “For Yayoi Kusama”

Wendy Eisenberg is an improvising guitarist, banjo-player, vocalist and poet. Using the languages of free jazz, new music, metal and art song, their music challenges the representational and technical demands placed on a guitar and a banjo in contemporary music. They have two solo careers: improviser/composer, and songwriter. Wendy’s debut record as an improviser, “Its Shape Is Your Touch,” came out in October 2018. Her trio, “The Machinic Unconscious,” with Ches Smith and Trevor Dunn, released their debut album on Tzadik that same month. Both records made Billboard’s Critic’s Choice Top Ten Jazz Records year end list, and received features and attention from NPR and National Sawdust. Their album of quiet art-pop songs, Time Machine was remastered and re-released on Feeding Tube records on September 7th, 2018. In addition to their work as a solo artist, they have written and performed in numerous projects, including the critically acclaimed experimental band Birthing Hips, described by NPR as “brainy, noisy punk based in sonic adventure, technical mastery, and rejection of the status quo.” They lead a rock trio, Editrix, which explores similar parameters. Their work as an improviser has led them to collaborate with Matt Mitchell, Trevor Dunn, Ches Smith, Ted Reichman, Joe Morris, Damon Smith, Shane Parrish and Zach Rowden, among many others. They has premiered work by John Zorn, Matt Mitchell, Ted Reichman, Maria Schneider, and Marta Tiesenga, as well as works by their many peers, and has premiered her own work at The Stone, The New School, the Hartt School of Music, New England Conservatory, and Hampshire College. Wendy has provided soundtrack work for the scientific projects of MIT Media Lab fellow and scientist-artist Ani Liu. Their poetry has been set into two large scale works by Matt Curlee, premiered at the Eastman School of Music in 2014 and one awaiting its premier featuring percussionist Michael Burritt. Their writings on music can be found in John Zorn’s Arcana VIII: Musicians on Music, Sound American Ed. 23, and in the “Improvisation and Inclusion” edition of the Contemporary Music Review. www.wendyeisenberg.com

Jon Starks
Track 6, “For Yayoi Kusama”

Jon Starks is a drummer and producer based in Boston, MA. He is a member of the bands Birthday Ass, Petite Feet, and Tr0ut and has solo releases on Manic! and Arlylza. jonstar.bandcamp.com