L.A. Lungs is an Olympia-based project consisting of Nathan Markiewicz and Lori Peterson. We feel very grateful to consider the greater Pacific Northwest esoteric arts community home since the project began in 2005.

These two live performances both occurred at Teatro de la Psychomachia in Seattle, in 2013 and 2016. While performed almost three years to the day from one another, the two performances feel like they could’ve been from the same evening. Thanks to Casey Chittenden Jones for recording these tracks. Also thanks to Vanessa Skantze and Teatro de la Psychomachia.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Lost Chocolate Lab is guitarist Damian Kastbauer channeling solo improvisational frequencies at the intersection of technology and expression.

Somewhere tangled in the frequency-sheets of sound stands a lone guitar player; glaciers of distortion covering invisible mountains with blankets of white noise atop towering peaks. Impossible to reconcile the enveloping resonance from common six-string instrument; the full-on maelstrom of sound barely representing the visible playback mechanism slung over-shoulder. Notes on a scale transferred from fingertip to fretboard, magnetic pickups transferring vibrations to electricity. The weaving of a sonic tapestry, dyed with the circuits of a thousand components in a signal chain enshrouding the interaction in pure-potential. Simply-put: the energy-driving creation of the human spirit and the output thereof reaching the heart of someone.

Digital album available to purchase on BandCamp.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Stephanie Wood is an experimental sound artist, sound practitioner and healing justice-centered activist. Using a plethora of gongs, DIY sound sculptures, processed found objects and field recordings, she incorporates surrounding soundscape, silence, and group experiences in performances. Stephanie loves playing/composing with eclectic ensembles and teaching group improv with gongs, electronics and found objects. She also hosts Seattle Avant-Garde Music Society and co-hosts the NO CONCERT series at Taoist Studies Institute with Shoko Zama. Instagram: @stephaniewoodbelovedsound

While largely spacious in nature, this session recorded at the Chapel is neither radically experimental nor “journey-centered.” Rather, it’s a collection of “ramblings” interacting with the space and its sounds. Some sections are more hollow while others are disproportionately loud and intense. The closing drone is immersed in appreciation for the Chapel, the innumerable souls contributing to the space’s “magic,” and the unexpected avenues of support in these difficult days. Angela Wilson was vital for logistics and playing “back up” on gongs. 

Instruments: Val Bertoia linear copper and brass sonambient sculpture, Kosmov double-side hand pan, Yamaha THR amp and contact microphones. Gongs by Nolan, Paiste & Grotta Sonora.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Dangerknife was formed by Nico Sophiea (drums) and Brad Rouda (guitars) out of a mutual fondness of improvised music, film and poor decisions. One’s love of Pop and Harsh Noise and the other’s love of Balkan folk and 70s rock has created a band with a great sound for a discount record bin. They are joined here by Joe Kaufman (bass) and Mack Fisher (modular synth). Watch for upcoming releases on BandCamp.

This online concert was recorded live in one take. As Dangerknife typically performs to silent films of the past 110 years (homemade to major studios) as our guideline, we played while watching films the guitarist made years ago. That said, this is perfect for staring off into the void of 2020 and just wondering “What the hell,” or playing video of your own! We look forward to the day we can all do this in person again, safely.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Pink Void is the immersive solo project of Crystal Perez. She uses her guitar, keyboard and samples to create sprawling soundscapes of slow building, hazy guitar drone capable of lulling and consuming the listener in a nightmarish aural fog.

This piece is an exploration of creativity, endurance and strength as a cocoon we must sometimes create for ourselves in order to survive the isolation and pain of life. Getting through difficult times might require us to reach inside ourselves as we often find there is no other who can save us.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Rob Angus has been composing and performing in Seattle since the early 1980s. Having studied electronic music at the Boston School of Electronic Music and Penn State University, he became more interested in manipulating acoustic sounds. These days he tends to make acoustic music that often sounds like electronic music. Listen on BandCamp.

This is a live recording in four parts – actually, four live recordings.
The first two are older pieces played on two Mirage sampling keyboards, the third combines sampler with winds and horns, and the fourth uses a bell, gong, cymbal, percussion, trombone and cello, but no sampler.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Samantha Boshnack (trumpet, flugelhorn) and Chris Credit (tenor & baritone saxophones) have worked together for 13 years. They played together for five years in the modern jazz sextet Reptet, which featured all-original compositions from each member of the band, released two albums and a single, and toured extensively. In 2011, Boshnack started creating her own ensembles featuring her compositions exclusively. Credit is a member of Boshnack’s 14-piece alternative chamber orchestra, B’shnorkestra, which has released two albums and played many NW performances including Earshot Jazz Festival; he also plays in Boshnack’s group Seismic Belt, whose performances include Festival of New Trumpet Music and Winter Jazzfest in NYC.

This duo project draws on their rich musical relationship, exploring compositions and improvisations in an intimate, agile, and unconfined setting. This performance, recorded at the Chapel by Steve Peters, features three previously un-released Boshnack compositions and concludes with a free improvisation.

(00:00) Small Beast
(08:55) Little Ball of Energy
(17:10) Song for the People’s
(22:35) Improvisation

(photo: Chris Davis)

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Nital Etch is Kevin Lewis. Primarily a string player, operating out of Seattle. He enjoys hard labor, paying bills, and sleeping.

Desperation
Compiled 11/19/2020: Cello, lap steel guitar, synth/electronics. Dark neoclassical, ambient, drone seasoned with doom.

00:00 Onward Forever
01:58 Persona Non Grata
07:00 Cloth Mother
09:25 Feed The Crows (Tweed Session)
19:40 Despondence
23:23 Wednesday 6:16 PM
24:48 Hurrah Hurrah

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

First meeting in Seattle’s lost iconic venue, Cafe Racer, Heather Bentley (viola) and Dio Jean-Baptiste (drums) have been celebrating their ongoing experimental listening fest for audiences of one to hundreds. In live streams, VJ collaborations, recordings, dance collaborations, concert halls, and house concerts, they’ve been locking ears and wielding sounds for over five years and have no plans to stop. (Venmo: @Heather-Bentley)

(Photo: Alissa Jean-Baptiste)

Digital album available on BandCamp.

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.

Gyre is an experimental electronics trio formed by Michael Shannon (Eye Music, Aono Jikken Ensemble, Yuan, Earnerve), David Stanford (Eye Music, Aono Jikken Ensemble, Gamelan Pacifica), and Carl Lierman (Eye Music) in January of 2012.

Gyre’s sound making practice is inspired by the helical swirls found both in nature as well as the philosophical ideas of the Gyre by writers such as W.B. Yeats; spirals and cycles of creation and disintegration, forming currents and shapes of sound that can take on a life of their own. We work entirely with electronics: Oscillators, internal and external feedback circuits, transducers, misused effects. As such, instability plays an important roll in our exploration; a commitment to realizing the creative power of unpredictable connections: present in the moment, everything is next.

Recorded at the Baumhaus 11-14-2020

(00:00) Session 1: A Method of a Cloak

“A single climb to a line, a straight exchange to a cane, a desperate adventure and courage and a clock, all this which is a system, which has feeling, which has resignation and success, all makes an attractive black silver.” Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons

The sudden (straight exchange) intersections in the opening few minutes, followed by the emergent forms (all of which [are] a system), the embedded feeling of the three of us rediscovering and reactivating our practice after a lengthy, forced hiatus.

(28:14) Session 2: Curves

The revelation of phase, over time, frames. What will the future shape be?

With the Chapel closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wayward Music Series moves from the concert hall to the living room. In place of our usual ten monthly concerts, Nonsequitur is commissioning ten Seattle artists each month to create a series of streaming audio sessions of previously unreleased material.