Ꮭαყ/Hαυɠ (Los Angeles, CA)
Pauline Lay (violin + electronics) and Kern Haug (drumkit) play spry, emotive music, improvised and fleeting. Like a scratchy, tentative caress their music envelops the listener in a heavenly, harmonious racket at once unpredictable and laser-focused on a destination that looms in the sonic distance.
Lay and Haug are both veterans of the Los Angeles independent music community as players and collaborators on a lengthy list of bands and projects. Pauline is an active organizer and performer, spanning over 20 years across venues and art spaces throughout southern California, showcasing compositions, playing solo/in ensembles and a myriad of collaborators at rock clubs, punk houses, and cultural institutions; Kern has been behind the drumkit in several breakout LA area groups, currently with black metal band Agriculture (The Flenser) and, previously, free jazz-inflected rockers Young Jesus(Saddle Creek) and with spacey, loose “punk exotica” group Monde UFO (Fire Records). They both also play in an on-again off-again tribute to The Fall called Hip Priest.
Kern helps lead the Los Angeles Office of Improvisation, a loose collective of mostly LA-based musicians founded in 2024 who release a fully improvised album on the first of each month; all recordings feature both Kern and guitarist Louis Cohen with one or more other musicians.
(This track features Louis Cohen and Nicki Chen along with Pauline and Kern and was recorded as part of
@laoimprov monthly album series. You can listen to Lay/Haug on Bandcamp at /album/three-improvisations)
