On June 6 we’ll be celebrating the release of Movie by Lifted at Tonal Park, right across the Maryland/DC border. Joining the party are More Eaze, one of Movie’s featured guest stars, and Earthen Sea, a longtime compatriot of the duo. We’ll have tapes on hand and available to exchange for your hard earned dollars.
Lifted live happenings are full of spontaneous confluences and jammed out tracks that bubble and churn like a slowly boiling stew. Stems are assembled and disassembled using an array of CDJs, building each track live from the ground up. We’re tempted to call it a new horizon in turntablism without a hint of hyperbole. OT presented Lifted’s first live gig in 2023, back before we were even releasing records, and we’re excited to realize this full-circle moment.
More Eaze, aka Mari Maurice Rubio, plays pedal steel, bass, and acoustic guitar on “The Ice Chewers,” the opening credits for Movie, and recently released her incredible new album Sentence Structure in the Country on Thrill Jockey. Mari exists in the Jim O’Rourke continuum of musicians who have mastered both pop songwriting and exploratory soundmaking, integrating both into her albums and live sets.
Earthen Sea is Jacob Long, known in DC and beyond for his membership in Black Eyes, here exploring dubbed out, atmospheric terrains. The last Earthen Sea set we saw also featured extensive saxophone, weaving in and out of the surreal electronic textures that define this music. He contributed to the Lifted albums Trellis and 3.
As always, this will be a night of out of your head sounds in service of community and friendship. $15-30 sliding scale, and find the ticket link at rhizomedc.org or in our bio zone.
Flyer by Andrew Max FT
Announcing Movie by Lifted, a new album of collaged soundscapes inspired by innumerable trips the big screen, out June 5th on cassette and digital 🎥🎬🍿
Movie is like a film shot with microphones rather than cameras, using the pacing, spatialization, and semiotics of cinematic sound design to lead us through a surreal soundworld that draws as much from Foley artistry as dub, jazz, and electronic music. Musical elements and field recordings shift in and out of focus, collaged in spontaneous improvisation sessions on CDJs by the core DC/Baltimore based duo of Andrew Field-Pickering (Max D, Dolo Percussion, Beautiful Swimmers) and Matt Papich (Co La, Ecstatic Sunshine). We may not see where we are, but our ears give us all the information we need.
Right now you can hear “The Ice Chewers (Opening Credits).” We open on a pedal steel, played by More Eaze, but it’s been warped and slowed, gradually pitching upward until it’s met by drums and electronics. Imagine the THX logo emerging onscreen. Movie is bookended by two related themes, giving the spatial experiments at the heart of the record form and focus. Dustin Wong, Jeremy Hyman, Mezey, Duncan Moore, and Motion Graphics all make appearances. Even with such an expansive ensemble cast, the focus remains squarely on the flow from one scene to the next.
Links to listen and pre-order for US and EU/UK are included in the bio zone up above.
Recorded in various locations by @phantomcenter , @mezey.info , @falseguitars , and Craig Bowen and produced by Lifted
Mastered by @the_land_ethic.wav
Cover art by Matt Papich & Andrew Max FT
Design by @touchfreak
Artist photo by @reallyfarrah
On May 21 we’re exploring the outer bounds of sound in both acoustic and electronic modes with two artists who utilize psychoacoustics to dizzying effect. We’re thrilled to welcome clarinetist Madison Greenstone down to the District from New York, with Baltimore-based computer music duo Two Weeks setting the stage for the evening. Join us at Rhizome with open ears - as open as possible, really.
Greenstone is a clarinetist with a radical approach to sound making, exercising carefully honed techniques to coax multiple tones from their instrument. Sharp high-frequency pitches emerge ghostly over coarse drones, expanding beyond simple multiphonics to incorporate various timbres simultaneously. They are a member of the brilliant TAK Ensemble, and are featured throughout the upcoming Horse Lords album (though that is just a small slice of their expansive collaborative practice). Greenstone will be performing a new piece called “Sola Mente” an elaborative extension of material from their album Resonance Studies in Ecstatic Consciousness.
Two Weeks is comprised of Obie Feldi and Ben Starkey, both of whom perform on computers and both of whom call Baltimore home. Whether employing quiet sounds or loud ones, there’s a distinct intensity to their music that leaves us floored every time. We would say “expect the unexpected,” but applying a cliché to this music would be a weird move.
Tickets are available at rhizomedc.org via the link in the link spot. 7pm doors, 7:30 sounds. Notaflof etc etc etc. We’ll see you out there.
Poster by @touchfreak
*show alert* may 12 @lightandsounddesign !! celebrating my new LP on @outsidetime__ . honored to be sharing the night with some greats, @sapropelicpycnic@tongue___depressor . ticket link in bio!
it’s been just over a month since this music emerged into the world, and I am floored by the support and kind words that I’ve received. thank you for your listening and your presence ♥️
photo by @otherkaiser
On May 9, we gather to celebrate of the living, breathing spirit of the minimalist movement that was sparked in the middle of the last century and cared for lovingly by each successive generation. We’re grateful to @seatedovation and @minimalism.society for inviting us to showcase how practitioners here in the DMV are living within the tradition of minimalism for their upcoming 10th annual conference. Here we have three artists with highly individual approaches, all of whom pull on different threads within the overall tapestry. Turns out there’s many ways to pare back and make the listener’s head spin.
We have @almalaprida playing her tromba marina, an instrument that forces the player to think in harmonics and negative space with its simplicity of design. @rachelbeetz will be performing the gasping “Gate” and slithering “Delay” from her recent OT album Tone Keepers, itself a bold declaration of the depth that can be found in restraint. And @talsounds will cradle us in the warmth of her synthesizers. The concert will take place at The Clarice at UMD, and is free and open to the public.
Image by @dnorsen_design , fashioned after Sol LeWitt’s poster for the 1978 Kitchen gala featuring Laurie Anderson, Robert Ashley, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, and Steve Reich. We believe our scene is just as legendary as theirs.
OUT TODAY ~~ I grow accustomed to the dark by Zosha Warpeha, collecting two extended compositions for Hardanger d’amore and voice as they are sounded into a resonant space. Available via LP and digital formats. 🎻🌑
The album documents two single-take solo performances recorded while in residence at Brooklyn’s ISSUE Project Room, composed in a unique tuning system developed to interact with the space itself. Though very different in character and structure, each piece evolves slowly through numerous repetitive phrases, passages of stillness, and bursts of intensity. “filament” opens with a cycle of delicate melodic fragments played and sung around a drone before blossoming into an outpouring of swooping arpeggios, harmonics flying from the strings like sparks off a bonfire. The disorienting pulsation of harmonic beating forms the core of “visual purple,” the close-tone dissonance building to a swarm of open strings ringing boldly throughout the space. After the knotty tones reach their climax, the piece collapses into studied quietude, hushed, but without any drop in intensity.
We will be celebrating the release of the LP tonight, March 27, at @ergotrecords in NYC from 6-8pm. Join us as we welcome this music into the ears of the world.
LPs available direct from the label via Bandcamp, in Europe via @anostanost and @soundohm , UK via @boomkatonline , and Japan via various retailers. Find it on most (but not all) digital platforms.
Art by @patkimpatkim
Design by @eegijlmoor777
Self portrait by @zoshazosha
Video by @knthjimenez
Recorded at @issueprojectroom by @petestraydogs
Mixed by @michaelprincecoleman
Audio finalized by @the_land_ethic.wav
Today we’re making available a very limited number of copies of Two Postscripts, a cassette by Weston Olencki that reconfigures material from Broadsides and was originally for sale only at the merch table on their winter 2026 tour of the American South. It documents two solo performances for autoharp and banjo, respectively, which unfold in manners quite different from the album, but will perhaps feel familiar to those who have seen Weston perform over the past couple years. If one of the poignant themes of Broadsides is the bold underlining of the way culture and music move through time, Two Postscripts is proof that this work is no different from the rest.
Only 25 copies of the cassette are available via Bandcamp, and we anticipate they will sell out quickly. We’re not planning on making them available anywhere else. If you missed Broadsides, we’ve also put up a bundle which will give you a little discount both on the cassette and LP.
Weston made the art, which riffs on the standard OT cassette design and offers a new perspective on the abandoned mill from the cover of Broadsides.
Head to Bandcamp for more & to purchase. We appreciate your ears and your time.
Coming up March 27th, we’ll be gathering up fellow travelers at @ergotrecords in NYC to celebrate the release of I grow accustomed to the dark, Zosha Warpeha’s masterful new LP. This may be sensitive and considered work, but we also want to celebrate, so please bring both your listening ears and party hat. Light refreshments will be served for any attendees that may want that kind of thing. We’ll be hanging from 6-8pm. Listening in isolation is fun, but listening together is just the best.
Brand new copies of the LP will be available to purchase from Ergot during the event. It’s been a long road to here, and an even longer one as this work finds its place among the larger tapestry of creative music. Please join as we celebrate this particularly joyful stop along the way.
Flyer by @sophiesachar.design
Photo of Zosha by @otherkaiser
On March 24 we’ve prepared a program with the intent to delight and confound, with practitioners of sound and beyond from here in the DMV and across the wide, wide ocean. It goes down at our beloved shack of sound, @rhizome_dc
We’re excited to welcome the groundbreaking turntablist Mariam Rezaei, who will be on tour from the UK, presenting her brain-scrambling original techniques for two decks and a mixer. To watch her work is to experience a new kind of virtuosity. The mechanics of the turntable become a playground for infinite possibilities, using the sound within the grooves, as well as the built-in capacities of the mixer and digital vinyl systems, to create uncanny cut-ups and electronic compositions. She is a member of the Turntable Trio with Evicshen and Maria Chavez, and shares with them the ability to create phonographic fun-houses of sound.
Because we believe that mediums are more porous than we generally acknowledge, we’re expanding beyond the purely sonic to welcome Katie Magician to the stage. A performance artist, educator, and “play practitioner” (we wish we came up with that descriptor!), they are a creator of characters, installations, and creative movement. This will be a fun one.
During the intermission, we’re excited to host the second-ever performance by Lustre Chantant, the duo of Max Hamel and Chris Griffiths. Using small motors, homemade electronics, tiny battery-powered amps, and other assorted objects they make the tiniest racket imaginable. This is sound art with a whole host of scare quotes. The audience will have to find them somewhere in the house.
Tickets available at rhizomedc.org, or in the OT bio. Come get wild with us.
Poster by @touchfreak
Announcing I grow accustomed to the dark, a new album of expansive long-form compositions for Hardanger d’amore by Zosha Warpeha, out March 27 on Outside Time on LP & digitally
Both of the album’s side-long pieces, “filament” and “visual purple,” exemplify a duality that animates Warpeha’s music: an expressive, individualistic style that draws on extensive knowledge of her instrument’s history in folk traditions, and an austere, devotional quality maintained by focus and precision. Listeners can trace resonance from the contact of the bow on gut strings into the body of the instrument, its five sympathetic strings offering another layer of refraction, before the sound is thrown about the cavity of Brooklyn’s ISSUE Project Room, where it was recorded. The echoes emerge like a photographic double exposure, or wisps of smoke that linger in the air, creating ghostly harmonic convergences that blur the line between what is there and not-there. Sound begins to act like light, a synesthetic alchemy that transforms drones into beams and ornamental trills into flickers.
To find out what we mean, take a few moments to immerse yourself in a portion of “visual purple,” which is anchored by the disorienting pulsation of harmonic beating and close-tone dissonance. The sound seems to appear just beyond the ear before it fills the vaulted ceiling.
Links to pre-order the LP and engage your ears are linked in the link spot. US customers are encouraged to use Bandcamp, while Europeans can find it at @anostanost .
Art by @patkimpatkim
Design by @eegijlmoor777
Self portrait by @zoshazosha
Recorded at @issueprojectroom by @petestraydogs
Mixed by @michaelprincecoleman
Audio finalized by @the_land_ethic.wav
OUT TODAY ~~ Tone Keepers by Rachel Beetz, a collection of deceptively simple compositions for flute, piccolo, and electronics that follow a straight line into unexpected territory 👀👀
Each piece on Tone Keepers is named for the layer of electronic processing used in its production. The prickly lattice patterns of “Delay,” featured here, were born of a listening game Beetz created to explore the time-shifting qualities of music, a deep peering into a mirror reflecting one’s most recent past self. “Feedback,” in which the flute becomes a resonating tube connecting a small microphone and earbud to create bulbous wobbling frequencies, was made in the wake of an experience with a predictably misogynistic sound guy. This story and more are featured in the album’s extensive liner notes alongside literary references, personal reflections, and many, many unblinking eyes.
“We’re suckers for a good solo flute album and Los Angeles-based player Rachel Beetz’s latest is genuinely surprising, a precise, impeccably processed series of diversions that completely reconfigures our preconceptions of the instrument.” - Boomkat
Order Tone Keepers via Bandcamp in the linky link in the bio zone, find it via your favorite digital platform (but, you know, not the worst one), or snag via a few very hip shops and distros.
Rachel plays Red Room in Baltimore tonight, with a forthcoming release celebration in Los Angeles at @oracle_egg on April 5. Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate at Rhizome this week!
Audio finalized by @identitymastering
Art by @sarahmanleyart
Design by @touchfreak
