Talk Low Fest

Adventurous Listeners Welcome 🫵 Whited Sepulchre Records and the Contemporary Arts Center are thrilled to announce the initial line-up of the 2026 Talk Low Music Festival September 24-27th. Early Bird tickets are on sale now at cincytickets.com, in our bio and on our website. Our initial line-up includes Croz Boyce (Avey Tare + Geogolist from Animal Collective), Hayden Pedigo, Horse Lords, Rachel Grimes performing with concertnova and Elori Saxl & Henry Solomon. Performances will take place at Contemporary Arts Center, Woodward Theater and Christ Church Cathedral. More artists (including our Saturday and Sunday headliners) and venues TBA on 05.29 both online and in person at the William Basinski show. Early Bird Tickets for the entire four days / six performances are on sale for $110 (+tax) or $120 (+tax) that includes a 4 LP bundle from Whited Sepulchre Records. Talk Low is made possible in part by the Haile Foundation and artswave as well generous sponsorships by Feel It Records, Downbound Books, Sessions Vinyl, Campbient, Collective Espresso, Phantom Power Podcast, Rhinegeist Brewing, Hellbender Vinyl and the Vanesse Family. Design by the incredible folks at CHRCH.

🎧🔬Listening Lab Experiment! Working with ambient and experimental soundscapes is one of the ways I practice attentional agency—consciously directing my attention toward where i personally choose, rather than passively being driven by external stimuli (like algorithms…) to where others might want my attention to land. Here’s a quick exercise. If you want to try more listening experiments in a community setting and explore how sound can help you reclaim your attention, join me and members of Innerspace Collective at @thewell.world on May 28th @ 7pm. FREE but seating is limited & tickets required (link in bio). Innerspace Listening Lab is in collaboration with @talklowfest in Cincinnati, OH and made possible, in part, by ArtsWave. #ListeningLab #AttentionalAgency #AttentionActivism #soundscapes #listen MindfulListening

Rachel Grimes is a composer, pianist, and arranger based in Kentucky who creates music for chamber ensembles, orchestras, film, multi-media installations, and collaborative live performances. Heralded “one of American independent music’s few truly inspired technicians” by WIRE magazine, she has toured worldwide as a solo pianist, and as a collaborator with various artists/ensembles, and has frequently appeared at the Big Ears Festival. Rachel will collaborate with Cincinnati based concertnova to perform selections from her past 30 years of work including work from her beloved indie chamber group Rachel’s who put out six albums on Quarterstick / Touch and Go Records. Rachel and concertnova will perform at the beautiful Christ Church Cathedral located in the heart of downtown Cincinnati with a very special guest opening the show. Rachel’s work has been performed by the Louisville Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Lexington Philharmonic, A Far Cry, Longleash Trio, Tessa Lark, and the Dublin Guitar Quartet among others. Recent releases include NPR’s Top Ten Albums of 2022 pick and Grammy-nominated The Blue Hour (co-created with Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, Caroline Shaw, Sarah Kirkland Snider on Nonesuch/New Amsterdam Records 2022), The Way Forth, a folk opera and film tracing generations of Kentucky history through women’s voices (Temporary Residence 2019), Wove It Into Cloth (Deutsche Grammophon 2019), and the soundtrack to The Doctor From India (2018).

~~ 06.11.26 | 8pm | The Comet | FREE ~~ As we get closer to the fest, Talk Low - in collaboration with Whited Sepulchre Records - will be hosting a series of performances showcasing artists that have released music on the Cincinnati based record label. On 6.11.26 we welcome the Hudson Valley musician, educator and provocateur Peretsky to the Comet. Those who are familiar with Peretsky’s online presence may be unprepared for the utterly sincere, moving singer-songwriter work under the Peretsky name. Tales of familial devotion and an ethos rooted in liberation theology played on piano whose playing and approach is rooted in 20th Century avant-garde and minimalism as much as a wide open ear towards the mutation of sound and free expression brought to us through 21st century social media archiving. NYC based Vildava will join Peretsky. Vildava’s minimal industrial work brings to mind the sinewy punishment of artists like Martin Rev and Clock DVA. Local artists include the free-noise, industrial soundscapes of Napalm Trees - a relatively new artist on the Cincinnati DIY scene who we are really excited about - and the DEBUT show by Pobrecito aka Grayson Rodriguez who many know through his work as DJ and scene documentarian / archivist. It’s shaping up to be a good ol’ weird time at The Comet!

Thrilled to announce the Baltimore based Horse Lords will kick off the Talk Low Music Festival on Thursday 09.24 at the Contemporary Arts Center. Their new album “Demand to be Taken Alive” is out 06.12 on RVNG INTL. Early bird tix available now. Link in bio. Horse Lords were founded in Baltimore, Maryland in 2010; they evolved from the experimental collective Teeth Mountain and began as a trio with drummer Sam Haberman, guitarist Owen Gardner, and bassist Max Eilbacher, soon adding alto saxophonist Andrew Bernstein to the core ensemble. Though Horse Lords grew out of the fertile Baltimore noise and leftfield rock scene, a storied environment for artists and weirdos that has nurtured many an influential outsider band (Lungfish, Matmos), their approach is more omnivorous than the stippled rhythms of instrumental electric rock would indicate. Across sixteen years of frequent touring, Horse Lords have released ten studio, live, and collaboration albums in addition to a split EP with fellow Baltimoreans Lower Dens, a handful of singles and compilation tracks. For RVNG’s FRKWYS series, the band collaborated with Berlin-based composer Arnold Dreyblatt, a onetime student of La Monte Young and Pauline Oliveros whose just intonation chamber music was a crucial part of the post-Fluxus Downtown New York City environment. Visuals by @chrch.cc #experimentalmusic #cincinnatimusic #musicfestival

Free show. We are pleased to bring @peretsky back to Cinci alongside @vildava_ with local support from @djpobrecito and @napalmtr33s at the @cometbar on 06.11 at 8pm. Visuals by @grayphotons About Peretsky: Composer, educator, and technologist Max Alper, known to many online for his commentary on the state of music education and the industry at large as La Meme Young, returns for a biting full length collection of minimalist songs for piano, voice, and electronics under the Peretsky moniker entitled It Doesn’t Get Cold In October Anymore. As the title implies, this collection of tracks evokes a pessimism while reflecting on a rapidly changing landscape, both at home and abroad, physically and mentally, internally and externally. Each song represents a familial story, whether it be on the subject of marriage, parenting, vocation, political leanings, or religion

Whited Sepulchre Records and Talk Low Music Festival are thrilled to bring Midwife back to Cincinnati with support from AMULETS and Brianna Kelly. Midwife (CO) Madeline Johnston is a self taught multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer, currently based in Southern Colorado by way of Denver, where she spent the last decade developing her sound and focusing on her artistic community. Midwife began while Madeline was a resident of the beloved DIY space Rhinoceropolis in 2014. On stage, Johnston is known for her sparse, emotionally charged experimental pop music that can silence a room. On record, she produces intricate and lush sonic environments in her own little corner of the heavy music scene. She describes her sound as “Heaven Metal,” AKA emotional music about devastation. Johnston writes primarily about grief, and the many faces it can inhabit. AMULETS (Portland) Amulets is the solo project of Portland-based audio + visual artist Randall Taylor. Amulets employs handmade cassette tape loops and live processed guitar loops to create live, lush soundscapes and immersive drones. Through the recontextualisation of cassettes, sampling, field recording, and looping, these long-form compositions blur the genres of ambient, drone, noise, and electronic music. Brianna Kelly Cincinnati based Brianna Kelly crafts songs that attach themselves to a fleeting connection with the unseen world while rooting itself in a very real topography and landscape. A submission to a force that continues on with or without our attention/devotion.

Thrilled to be bringing ambient maestro William Basinski to Cincinnati to the Woodward Theater 05.29. The New Yorker calls Basinski "a composer of slow-drifting, ethereal ambient works… taps into deep wells of emotion...sepulchral ambient music… imbued with a freighted sense of recovered memory.” Tickets are almost halfway sold out. Make sure you don't miss this legendary performer with support from our own Innerspace Collective @innerspace.sound @musex1 @woodwardtheater

05.28.26 - The Well (2454 Gilbert Ave) - 7:00 - 8:30pm *Free - RSVP Link in Bio Innerspace Listening Lab Interactive listening experiments in attentional agency using live improvised soundscapes Jenn Howd will be leading a group through a facilitated sound experience structured as a collective listening experiment. Participants will engage with a series of short, improvised live sound pieces performed by members of Innerspace Collective. Simple suggestions for engaging with the sounds will be offered before each piece, followed by facilitated reflection, inviting participants to notice how their attention and internal responses shift across varying sonic environments. In a media landscape deliberately designed to capture attention and anesthetize awareness, Innerspace Listening Lab offers counter-cultural practices that interrupt automatic consumption and support participants in reclaiming agency over their attention. Innerspace Listening Lab was designed and will be facilitated by j. howd (they/them), an avid meditator and multi-disciplinary artist whose work bridges contemplative practice and art to question dominant narratives and create space for deeper connection with self, community, and the greater web of life. Their work has been presented and published domestically and internationally on the radio, in books, art galleries, community organizations, sculpture parks, on stages, and in film theatres. IG: @jennHOWD . For more info about Innerspace Collective, visit IG: @innerspace.sound The Innerspace Listening Lab is in collaboration with the Talk Low Music Festival taking place September 24-27th in Cincinnati, OH and is made possible, in part, by ArtsWave. Please join us on 05.29 at the Woodward Theater to welcome the ambient music legend William Basinski to Cincinnati.

Thrilled to be bringing William Basinski to Cincinnati on 05.29 as part of his 2026 tour. William will be joined by @innerspace.sound at @woodwardtheater - tickets are on sale now. We are about a quarter sold out so make sure you scoop those tickets now. Link in bio.

Cinci’s own @nickkeeling_rail will bring his reel-to-reel piano compositions to @swell_art_cafe on 03.05 opening for Maria Chavez. Photos and design by @tommyluensman and @theawecincy About Nick: “Nick Keeling is a sound artist and composer based in the Ohio River Valley. A classically trained pianist with a passion for history, Nick explores topics of entropy, decay, and memory using musical instruments and home audio equipment salvaged from industrial America. His work is anchored in fragile magnetic tape recordings, balancing classical composition with ambient soundscapes. His pieces weave together collapsing layers of piano performance, field recordings, and audio tape loops. Nick has presented performances and installations in a multitude of spaces including factories, abandoned railroad tunnels, Masonic halls, and living rooms.

📀💿MARIA CHAVEZ💿📀 Talk Low Music Festival is bringing you the one and only broken record sound artist, Maria Chavez! Wave Pool is hosting a turntable workshop from 7-9PM March 4th, and SWELL Cafe is hosting Chavez for a live performance of her improvisational music March 5th, 8-9PM (doors open at 7). WHEN/WHERE/WHAT 💿March 4th 7-9PM - Wave Pool Art Center - Turntable Workshop 📀March 5th 8-9 PM - SWELL Art Cafe - Live Performance Head to our Eventbrite page for tickets (Linktree in bio)! Who is Maria Chavez? Chavez defines herself as an abstract turntablist, sound artist, and DJ, who uses broken records, chance, and failure to create her artwork across multiple mediums. She performs with a rare needle, the RAKE Double Needle, which can play two segments of a record simultaneously. This needle combined with her broken records creates unique soundscapes that are different with each performance. Check out more at her website: mariachavez.org We're excited to see you! . . . #MariaChavez #WavePoolArtCenter #SWELLArtCafe #SoundArt #liveperformance