Matchess feat. Haley Fohr & Lula Asplund:

In anticipation of alter ego albums Hav/Stena to be released on Drag City in September 2024, Matchess (AKA Whitney Johnson) enlists Haley Fohr (AKA Circuit des Yeux) and Lula Asplund to turn down the energetic temperature and settle into a mellow expansion of sound. With three marimbas, sine waves, viola, voices, and electronics, the trio will invite us to experience sonic doubles in our bodies and minds. Their individual practices in experimental music, sound art, and performance will invoke the “two against three” principle to alchemize a fresh collaboration on this tour of the American East.

Whitney Johnson is an artist based in Chicago who uses sound to explore relationships between bodies and minds. As Matchess, she composes, performs, and installs multi-channel sound from the viola, sine waves, Max/MSP, organ, synthesizers, vocalization, tape looping, and field recording. In tandem with her sound practice, she received her doctorate in the sociology of sound from the University of Chicago in 2018 and will begin as Assistant Professor of Sound Practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in August 2024.

Haley Fohr is a vocalist, composer and singer-songwriter based in Chicago. Her musical endeavors focus around our human condition, and her 10-year career as Circuit des Yeux has grown into one of America’s most successful efforts to connect the personal to the universal. She is most distinctly identified by her 4-octave voice and unique style of 12-string guitar. Her recent works include an Original Soundtrack for Charles Bryant’s silent film Salomé (1923), commissioned by Opera North, and her critically acclaimed 2021 album -io, released on Matador Records.

Lula Asplund is an experimental sound artist currently based in Chicago. Their work explores the non-linear, intimate, tactile aspects of sound and voice and tapping into the logic of the subconscious, externalizing through fragmented sound poetry, musique concrète, and performance/theater. Lula holds a BFA in music from Mills College and an MFA in Sound from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Manna Pourrezaei:

Manna Pourrezaei is a Philadelphia-based synthesist and electronic music composer who explores the relationship between repetition, pattern, randomness, and contradiction through the medium of sound.

venue is wheelchair accessible