Dave Knott – gathers, plays with sounds; nurtures change with music; enjoys dialogue with movement, listening and dreaming. Further listening on BandCamp and SoundCloud.

Requia

memory’s tempering improvisations
playing with the dead
who have all dispersed in wonder
as loss is lifted
off a Fahey record from 1967

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Nat Evans is a composer and artist based in Seattle. His work is regularly presented across the United States, and has also been presented in Europe, South America, Australia and China. Evans has received numerous commissions including The Henry, Odeon Quartet, San Francisco MOMA, Seattle Art Museum, The City of Tomorrow, Portland Cello Project, ALL RISE, The Box Is Empty, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, among others. Works and events by Evans have been featured on WNYC’s New Sounds and BBC3, as well as in LA Weekly, WIRED, The New York Times, VICE, Tiny Mix Tapes, The Believer and numerous other publications. His work has appeared at galleries such as Interstitial, SOIL, The Frye Art Museum, Greg Kucera, as well as Mediate Art Soundwave Biennial, Aqua Art Miami, NEPO 5k, and other festivals.

Still Just Sitting Out Back is born from having an unusually large amount of time to be still and just sit in meditation during the pandemic of 2020. I started to feel like my own breathing is a sort of tone resonating inside myself, but also a universal tone we are all experiencing, even if we aren’t always aware of our own breath. Our own breathing is simply the manifestation of the universe, just as the universe is simply the manifestation of our breathing. Per Dogen, “green mountains are always walking.”

Elise Blatchford – flute, Evan Smith – bass clarinet, Nat Evans – field recording, shruti box

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Neal Kosaly-Meyer is a composer and performer living in Seattle. He continues work on Gradus and hopes to present in-person performances again before too long. He is also memorizing and performing chapters of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, and has presented a new chapter annually at the Chapel since 2014. During lockdown he has been performing chapters on Facebook, and will perform three more between September and December. He is a founding member, with Keith Eisenbrey and Aaron Keyt, of Banned Rehearsal, an ongoing argument in creative expression. He and Karen Eisenbrey record and perform as the rock group Your Mother Should Know.

Gradus: for Fux, Tesla, and Milo the Wrestler – Three Rungs

The concise version of the score is “learn to play the piano one note at a time.” Since 2002, Neal Kosaly-Meyer has been devoting extended improvisation sessions to each single pitch on the piano, and then to systematically selected combinations of those pitches. So far he has worked through the A’s, E’s, C#’s, G’s and B’s, and is about halfway through the D’s. In performance three “rungs” are selected, one dedicated to a single pitch, one to two pitches, and one to three or more pitches (in the present case, ten pitches were chosen for the final section). Silence, in John Cage’s understanding, is always full of sounds, and is always an integral part of Gradus, and of equal importance with the notes played on the piano. At the session for this performance Julie Cascioppo had walked through the Chapel, unaware that a recording was in progress. Special thanks to Julie and her cat Baci for their contributions, along with the birds, dogs, outdoor musicians, sirens, planes, traffic and wind which are all very much a part of this music.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Blessed Blood is the project of Seattle vocalist Rachel LeBlanc. After years fronting experimental and punk projects, she desired an outlet that would showcase the ethereal side of her talents, discovering the utilization of hardware effects to process choral melodies. Lyrically, LeBlanc draws from dark wells of emotion, exploring topics like death on her self-titled first release. Her vocal phrasings have been described as “geometric” and “antediluvian spell-casting” with Tiny Mix Tapes declaring, “Blessed Blood is truly angelic work, which is why it is so frightening.” 

For her submission to the Wayward in Limbo series, Blessed Blood shares contemplations regarding the pursuit of Life’s meaning, along with lamentations for dreams lost. Inspired by the common threads of traditional music around the world, strong vocal leads are processed with guitar pedals and electronic modules, creating textures and noise breaks between stark minimalism.

“I’m thrilled to be included in this esteemed roster, especially as my best performances have happened at the beloved Chapel Performance Space.”

(00:00) Intention Setting
(04:52) speaking
(07:10) Folly, pt. 1
(08:37) Folly, pt. 2
(14:17) Folly, pt. 3
(24:00) speaking
(27:08) Nothing Knows Me
(29:00) Liquid Bodies

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Remorselessly speculative composer/pianist/improvisor Keith Eisenbrey is a native of the Puget Sound area. He studied composition with Dell Wade, Ken Benshoof, John Rahn, and Benjamin Boretz. He is a cofounder of Banned Rehearsal, an ongoing argument in creative musical expression with over 1000 recorded improvisation sessions in the main sequence. His compositions center on solo keyboard, sacred song, and small ensembles. His listening journal is Now Music in New Albion.

16 Clavichord Improvisations, August 2020

The clavichord is a stringed keyboard instrument, dating back some 600 years. It is known for its quiet intimacy and sensitive touch and is possessed of a huge dynamic range that tops out at a thunderous mezzo piano. Since it doesn’t project effectively in any but the smallest spaces I thought it a perfect choice for these our so sadly secluded days. I am playing a 5-octave double-strung unfretted Zuckermann instrument that my dad and I built from a kit in 1984-5. The 16 improvisations shared here were made on August 16 and 22 of this year. Where one ends and the next begins is not crucial.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Stephen Fandrich has been a resident performing artist of Seattle for 35 years, and is strongly influenced by the music of Asia, particularly Russia, Tyva (Tuva) and Indonesia. Classical piano, jazz piano, prepared piano, gamelan, throat singing, just-intonation, tuning, instrument building, sound-based installation, composition, and improvisation are all current passions.

This performance is dedicated to Darrell Fandrich
(January 31, 1942 – August 12, 2019)

The piano has been prepared with bamboo chopsticks, but only the sharp keys.

1. The Water Way: Variations on Artii-Sayir, a folk melody of Central Tyva

The Ulugh-Khem region of Tyva, a coal basin located in the modern autonomous republic of Tyva is the first home of Artii-Sayir (the dry side of a riverbed), a folk melody learned by throat singers all over the world today. The melody in all of its simplicity is presented at the end of the piece, after playing first its source and tributaries. A long beautiful affinity to the rhythms, harmonics, melodies and stateliness of water was sown into my own musical character by this Tyvan treasure.

2. Improvisation

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Steve Barsotti is a Seattle-based improviser, sound artist, instrument inventor and educator. He is active in several ongoing projects including the Seattle Phonographers Union, a collective that improvises in real time with unprocessed field recordings, and Mimeomeme, a record label that disseminates unusual sound art made by an eclectic collective of artists involved with a variety of unconventional techniques. He has been teaching for over 25 years at the college level (currently at Shoreline Community College) as well as presenting artists’ lectures and workshops in various approaches to electronic music, sound art, and audio production techniques. Steve also does audio post production for Kazbar Media, a small media company primarily focusing on the work of his wife, Laila Kazmi, a video producer dedicated to telling the stories of the variety of people and cultures that make up the American experience. www.kazbar.org
https://soundcloud.com/steve-barsotti

I began this piece during the first month of the lockdown due to the pandemic. It contains recordings from my collection of spaces filled with people and activity; kids in the park, celebratory fans, market goers, children’s music recitals, graduation ceremonies, park festivals and so on. I recorded these sounds over time when the spaces were filled with people, doing the things that people do in these spaces. During the lockdown, I returned to some of these spaces and recorded them again, but empty. The piece is also a reflection on the rising intensity felt across the nation during the Black Lives Matter protests. It serves as an audial analogy of our times and the rising social noise floor.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Beetlebox is an experimental composer, keyboardist, and solo artist based in Seattle who creates original, piano-centered electronic music. His intricate control at the keys triggers a plethora of intertwined acoustic and computer-generated sounds. Performances by Beetlebox seamlessly weave live renditions of his piano compositions with passages of spontaneous improvisation, enhanced by homemade software synthesizers and interactive computer accompaniment. You can find his music on BandCamp and SoundCloud.

This is a continuous session of improvised piano music. Homemade software synthesizers are used along with interactive computer components. At times the computer adds random pitch, random rhythm, and random keyboard mappings based on what is being performed. Embedded in this are references made to tracks that are not yet released.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Naomi Siegel is a trombonist, improvisor, composer and educator based in Missoula, MT and deeply connected to the Seattle music scene. She has released two albums as a bandleader/composer, is a member of Syrinx Effect, and is a frequent collaborator and freelancer with a variety of groups including Wayne Horvitz’s ensembles. You can find her music on BandCamp and SoundCloud.

“Gestation” is a freely improvised piece exploring and expressing my current experience being 23 weeks pregnant. Inspired by prompts from Pam Englander’s book Birthing from Within, this improvisation is a collage of honoring and owning my pregnancy journey, fears about birth, fantasies about birth, desired support, imagining of birth and delivery, and the beginnings of parenthood with my wife. Recorded on August 5, 2020 using trombone and electronics in my home studio with very little editing, I’m grateful to Wayward Music for the opportunity to document this moment.

(Photo by Rio Chantel)

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Susie Kozawa, a sound artist, composer and performer, works mostly with sound collages and site-specific installations, in which the gathering of sounds is a primary activity. She explores different acoustic spaces using musical instruments she makes out of found objects, kelp, modified toys and human voice. She is a member of the Seattle Phonographers Union and creates sound design for dance, film and theater productions.

This sonic exploration of the Good Shepherd Center Chapel made use of the following sound sources: Baliphones (sax & bass), Hum bows (rubber band & tape), Balloon jars (w/ marbles), Boeing surplus aluminum block, Wiggly gigglys, Boom ball racket (magnetic ball & sucker ball), Crank top music box, 7-11 Slurpee cup, spinning saw disc, rocks, voice.

(photo: Esther Sugai)

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.