Wendy Eisenberg has spent the past decade as a fixture of independent music and an artist of inspired multiplicity. As a singer-songwriter, improviser, and virtuoso guitarist, the coordinates of their artistry are ever-shifting, from art-rock to jazz to blistering free improv and eloquent folk. On catalog highlights including 2020’s 'Auto' and the 2024 free-jazz sprawler 'Viewfinder', they’ve made a signature of ambition.
The great spiritual masters might view Damon Smith from the perspective of eternity. But perceived, as he often is, in passing time, Damon Smith is a human musician living in New York City, where he was born and raised. Some years ago, he graduated from the New England Conservatory. Since then, there has been a flurry of activity. There have been releases with The Jacobins and, more recently, The Brightmares. There have been acclaimed solo records in which Damon’s own voice has cried out in the darkness of our world, as if from nowhere or from everywhere. These can be accessed on various streaming services and played back at various speeds and in various orders - celebrations of time that nonetheless flaunt time, insisting on and yet boldly rejecting all duration. Meanwhile, a slew of shows have unfolded synchronously, in which Damon has accompanied various people you’ve heard of and people you haven’t and people you should’ve or soon will (including Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, Dirty Projectors, and Andrew WK), at countless venues like 92nd Street Y and Carnegie Hall as well as festivals like Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits. The activity continues. Life is irreversible and long. From the standpoint of eternity, this has all already happened and will always be happening, all at once. Thankfully, we have the opportunity to experience these events sequentially in time. - Written by William Hazard
Stefan González, drummer, vibraphonist and vocalist in The Young Mothers, fronts the one-man grind/death-grind/noise-grind project Orgullo Primitivo/Primitive Orgasm. González comes from a serious music pedigree – his father is jazz trumpeter, poet, and visual artist Dennis González – but Stefan has carved out his own unique and original place on the national scene. Born in Dallas, which is his current home base, González is a member of free-jazz trio Yells at Eels (with his father Dennis as well as his brother Aaron), the punk-rooted jazz-rock group Unconscious Collective, and the lone jackhammer of Orgullo Primitivo, which the Dallas Observer calls as “refreshingly skeletal, free from the overwrought decadence that defines so much of Dallas’ ‘experimental music.’” In 2014, the Dallas Observer named González as the city’s “Best Drummer.”