California-based composer Chuck Johnson approaches his work with an ear towards finding faults and instabilities that might reveal latent beauty using pedal steel guitar, alternate tuning systems and electronics. Multi-instrumentalist Wednesday Knudsen’s solo project explores ambient improvisation and composition.
Chuck Johnson is a California-based composer, producer, and musician. He approaches his work with an ear towards finding faults and instabilities that might reveal latent beauty, with a focus on pedal steel guitar, experimental electronics, alternate tuning systems, and composing for film and television. Recordings of his work have been published by Western Vinyl, VDSQ, Thrill Jockey, Temporary Residence, Kompakt, Ghostly, and Three Lobed, among others.
Between 2011 and 2015 Johnson released a triptych of solo guitar LP’s – A Struggle Not A Thought, Crows in the Basilica, and Blood Moon Boulder – that have become touchstones of 21st Century acoustic guitar. Balsams, his first album to platform pedal steel guitar, was described by Pitchfork as “singular,” and “a mournful hymn built out of layers of sliding strings, cascading with a zenlike stateliness…” The Cinder Grove delves further into the compositional possibilities of the pedal steel guitar in the context of chamber ensemble arrangements for strings, organ, and piano. On his latest album Sun Glories, Johnson explores themes of time, memory, and illusion through his unique blend of pedal steel, synths, organs, strings, and drums.
Wednesday Knudsen is a multi-instrumentalist performer and recording artist based in New York’s Hudson valley. She collaborates and performs with many groups and musicians in the Hudson and Pioneer Valleys including: Stella Kola, Willie Lane, Kryssi Battalene, Clark Griffin (as Bulle), P.G. Six, Weeping Bong Band, and the rock group Pigeons. Her projects as a solo artist focus on experimentation and explore both improvisation and composition in an ambient mode. A vinyl edition of the second volume of her most recent album “Soft Focus: Volumes One and Two” was released in July on Feeding Tube records. “Ogden Garden,” an album with Kryssi Battalene, will be released this fall on the Daksina label.
Wednesday Knudsen is a multi-instrumentalist performer and recording artist based in New York’s Hudson valley. She collaborates and performs with many groups and musicians in the Hudson and Pioneer Valleys including: Stella Kola, Willie Lane, Kryssi Battalene, Clark Griffin (as Bulle), P.G. Six, Weeping Bong Band, and the rock group Pigeons. Her projects as a solo artist focus on experimentation and explore both improvisation and composition in an ambient mode. A vinyl edition of the second volume of her most recent album “Soft Focus: Volumes One and Two” was released in July on Feeding Tube records. “Ogden Garden,” an album with Kryssi Battalene, will be released this fall on the Daksina label.
