Event

Black Spirituals

ISSUE Project Room presents the New York debut of Oakland-based electro-acoustic unit Black Spirituals at new Ridgewood venue The Sump.

At the ecstatic intersection of rich harmonic tones and the heart-thumping, acoustic percussion, Black Spirituals transform performance sites with ritualistic communication, and manipulate temporal experience with their non-linear "Multi-Aesthetic Approach to Improvisation." A duo of Zachary James Watkins (electronics) and Marshall Trammell (percussion), the group borrows the alias Black Spirituals from a found cassette documenting a lecture given by Bernice Reagon on the roots music of American Black Slaves. These stories form a sonic resonance that speaks of rich relationships to one's surroundings, memories, profound feelings, dreams, and the experiences that inspire human expression. Forging a new tradition in conversant, duo vernacular dynamics, Black Spirituals compose live on stage, exchanging ideas in an ever-evolving dialogue between their individual musical narratives. For this performance they perform in duo and solo formations, bringing their transformative work to New York "craving new circuits of communication, new music halls and host bodies to possess."

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