Vehicle/Passenger is a new international trio consisting of Marc Alberto (NL/NA) on poetry, saxophones and electronics; Lesley Mok (US) on drums and percussion; and Florian Herzog (DE/US) on double bass and electronics. They will be releasing our debut recording, a special LP pressing of a live concert at Splendor in Amsterdam last spring.

In ‘Vehicle/Passenger’ the trio gathers around the thoughtful, radical poetry of Marc Alberto, as it weaves through energetically improvised pieces and delicate soundscapes. Exploring a queer perspective on body, society and improvisation - as suggested in the eponymous poem:

“vehicle/passenger
neither guide nor navigator
a carrier of time”

The sound of the trio is characterized by the patient and empathic interplay of spoken word, drums, sax, double bass and analog electronics. Intense and unapologetically political (in a way that’s reminiscent of hip-hop), yet always with introspection and collective awareness.

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HxH is the improvisatory electro-acoustic duo of Lester St. Louis and Chris Williams. The duo utilizes a mix of trumpet, cello and electronics to build worlds traversing through acoustic sound, grainy textures, expansive pools of sounds, breaks, cuts and beats. The approach is conceived as an expansiveness that holds a personal intimacy. HxH wants to bring the listeners in, tune them to the experience and take a long trip. HxH functions as a vehicle to bring together the mass of references and influences Chris and Lester share and create ways to crystalize those ideas in real, expanded time to an experience over minutes or hours.

Mobilizing freely improvised electronic percussion and stereophonic audio recordings, Speaker Music yearns to caress, engineer, and sculpt sentiment into a multi-textural rhythmic body, quivering moments into a collapsed “nonpulsed time.”

This will be a rare sighting of these combined forces!

guest-curated by LM