Robbie Lee (musician)

Last updated

Robbie Lee is an American, New York-based composer and multi-instrumentalist. [1] He specializes in improvisation, incorporating historical and early music instruments, in the intersection of experimental, classical and jazz music. [2] Lee also releases music under the name Creature Automatic. [3]

Contents

In the mid-2000s Lee was a member of Neil Hagerty’s post Royal Trux group The Howling Hex, [4] the Dax Riggs band and Love As Laughter. [5] Since 2008, he has been better known as part of the New York experimental scene as a member of minimalist composer and lutenist Josef van Wissem’s Heresy of the Free Spirit, the Early/Renaissance-music inspired group Seven Teares (where Lee played woodwinds and portative organ), his improvisational duo work with Che Chen, and as a session musician and collaborator. [6] He has also recorded a duo album with avant-garde guitarist Mary Halvorson and is part of the current acoustic project of experimental dance musician Glasser. [7]

Lee is known as an improvising saxophonist, keyboardist, guitarist, and player of several kinds of woodwinds, contemporary and historical. [6] He has worked as a session musician and collaborated with a large number of artists across genres, including Cass McCombs, Baby Dee, Eleanor Friedberger, Cassandra Jenkins, !!!, JFDR, Lights/Cliffie Swan, August Wells, Lia Ices, Brightblack Morning Light, Fraufraulein, Chris Brokaw, Lea Bertucci (for a Pauline Oliveros project), Talibam!, Brian Chase (drummer for Yeah Yeah Yeahs and drone musician) and Citay's Ezra Feinberg. [8]

In 2008, Lee began improvising regularly with fellow Brooklyn avant-rock improviser Che Chen, a collaboration that lasted for several years and first surfaced as the limited-release album Begin and Continue! (2008). Lee and Chen’s album The Spectrum Does (2017) was originally recorded in 2011. The album credits Lee with flute, tarogato, melodica, great bass recorder, electronics, percussion and Chen with violin, harmonium, bass recorder, tape machine, electronics, percussion. [9]

In 2010, Lee and Chen joined Dutch minimalist composer and lutenist Jozef Van Wissem in his project Heresy of the Free Spirit, playing music described by the Chicago Reader as “a sublime mixture of country blues, old-time mountain music, and minimalist drone that features Van Wissem playing his lute with a slide.” [10] The trio recorded an album in 2011, A Prayer for Light. Lee also mixed and mastered van Wissem's collaboration with film director Jim Jarmusch, Concerning the Entrance into Eternity (2012). The Incunabulum Records compilation New Music for Old Instruments, which also includes a Heresy of the Free Spirit track featuring singing by Japanese avant-garde musician Keiji Haino. [11]

Creature Automatic is the name of Lee's song-based project. Creature Automatic released the album Dust Clouds May Exist in 2015. Record Collector described Dust Clouds May Exist as “a collection of rough diamonds that veers wildly from genre to genre.” [3]

The trio album Opalescence, with German flutist Norbert Rodenkirchen (who also plays in early-music group Sequentia) and bassist James Ilgenfritz, released in 2018. Lee plays contrabass recover, chalumeau, gemshorn, sopranino saxophone, Beaudin and medieval flutes, Kingma-system quarter-tone flute, and Kotato F flute. [12]

His duo work with Mary Halvorson combines her vintage guitar sound with Lee's eight-key Baroque flute. Seed Triangular, Lee's album with Mary Halvorson, was released by New Amsterdam Recordings in 2018. [13] The New York Times described Lee as "a versatile musician with a passion for exhuming old American instruments." [14]

In 2022, Lee released Winds Bells Falls, a collaboration with New York composer and improviser Lea Bertucci. According to a Pitchfork reviewer, the album features Bertucci "record[ing] and contort[ing] Lee’s improvisations on celeste, chimes, baroque flute, and contrabass recorder in real time, while Lee responds to the sound of his own playing swirling and dissolving in front of his ears." Pitchfork described Winds Bells Falls as "often bright and gleaming, like light glinting in a funhouse mirror." [15]

Discography

As band member

Related Research Articles

Steve Beresford British musician

Steve Beresford is a British musician who graduated from the University of York He has played a variety of instruments, including piano, electronics, trumpet, euphonium, bass guitar and a wide variety of toy instruments, such as the toy piano. He has also played a wide range of music. He is probably best known for free improvisation, but has also written music for film and television and has been involved with a number of pop music groups.

<i>Spirit of Eden</i> 1988 studio album by Talk Talk

Spirit of Eden is the fourth studio album by English band Talk Talk, released in 1988 on Parlophone Records. The songs were written by vocalist Mark Hollis and producer Tim Friese-Greene and the album was compiled from a lengthy recording process at London's Wessex Studios between 1987 and 1988. Often working in darkness, the band recorded many hours of improvised performances that drew on elements of jazz, ambient, blues, classical music, and dub. These long-form recordings were then heavily edited and re-arranged into an album in mostly digital format.

Weasel Walter American drummer

Weasel Walter is an American composer, improviser, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and founder of ugEXPLODE Records. Walter's work has been informed by techniques and traditions of music including Avant-garde, experimental, no wave, free jazz, extreme metal, punk jazz, hardcore punk, noise, new music and free improvisation. He coined the term "brutal prog" to describe the aggressively dissonant strain of prog played by groups like his band The Flying Luttenbachers.

<i>Trout Mask Replica</i> 1969 studio album by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band

Trout Mask Replica is the third studio album by the American band Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, released as a double album on June 16, 1969, by Straight Records. The music was composed by Captain Beefheart and arranged by drummer John "Drumbo" French. Combining elements of R&B, garage rock, and blues with free jazz, avant-garde approaches, and other genres of American music, the album is regarded as an important work of experimental music and art rock.

<i>Church of Anthrax</i> 1971 studio album by John Cale and Terry Riley

Church of Anthrax is a collaborative studio album by musicians John Cale and Terry Riley. It was released in February 1971 by record label CBS, nearly a year after the material was recorded. It followed Riley's success with 1969's A Rainbow in Curved Air and Cale's influential work with the Velvet Underground.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jozef van Wissem</span> Dutch composer and lute player

Jozef van Wissem is a Dutch minimalist composer and lute player based in Brooklyn. In 2013 Van Wissem won the Cannes Soundtrack Award for the score of Only Lovers Left Alive at the Cannes Film Festival.

Peter Evans (musician) Musical artist

Peter Evans is a improvising trumpeter who specializes in free improvisation and avant-garde music.

Susan Alcorn

Susan Alcorn is an American composer, improvisor, and pedal steel guitarist.

<i>Un Peu de lÂme des Bandits</i> 1980 studio album by Aksak Maboul

Un Peu de l'Âme des Bandits is the second album by Belgian avant-rock band Aksak Maboul. It was recorded at Sunrise Studio in Kirchberg, Switzerland in February and August 1979, and released on LP in January 1980 on founding member Marc Hollander's Belgian independent record label, Crammed Discs. At the time the band had changed the spelling of their name to "Aqsak Maboul", and this is reflected on the album's record sleeve. When the album was re-issued on CD in 1995 the spelling of their name reverted to "Aksak Maboul".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Halvorson</span> American jazz composer and guitarist

Mary Halvorson is an American avant-garde jazz composer and guitarist from Brookline, Massachusetts.

Charlie Looker Musical artist

Charlie Looker is an American composer, improviser, vocalist, and guitarist known for his work in experimental metal, contemporary classical, avant-jazz, and Renaissance and Medieval musical forms.

Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with some of the genre's distinguishing characteristics being improvisational performances, avant-garde influences, odd instrumentation, opaque lyrics, unorthodox structures and rhythms, and an underlying rejection of commercial aspirations.

Le Guess Who? Dutch music festival

Le Guess Who? is a Dutch music festival featuring different music genres: from avant-garde, jazz, hip hop, electronic, experimental, noise rock, indie rock, world music and others. The festival, founded by Bob van Heur and Johan Gijsen, has been hosted in the city of Utrecht since 2007. The festival takes place in various venues such as theaters, club venues, churches, galleries and warehouses across the city. The 14th edition of the festival took place on November 11–14, 2021, in the city of Utrecht (Netherlands). It features Phil Elverum, Matana Roberts, John Dwyer (musician), Midori Takada and Lucrecia Dalt as curators; the initial line-up includes SPAZA, Bohren & der Club of Gore, Black Country, New Road, Low (band), The Necks and Alabaster DePlume.

Daniel Blumberg is an English artist, musician, songwriter and composer from London who works between drawing, improvisation, song form and film.

<i>In Walked Buckner</i> 1999 studio album by Roscoe Mitchell

In Walked Buckner is an album by American saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell which was recorded in Chicago in 1998 and released on Delmark the following year. The album is dedicated to vocalist Thomas Buckner.

Jessica Pavone is a New York-based violinist, violist and experimental composer. Her jazz-and-classical-inspired avant-garde music combines elements of improvisation and composition.

James Ilgenfritz is an American composer, bassist, and multi-instrumentalist. He is also a jazz sideman.

Che Chen is a New York-based composer and multi-instrumentalist, best known as a central figure in the group 75 Dollar Bill.

Bradley Eros is an experimental film director, actor, curator, poet, and performance artist who also makes Musique concrète sound collages, music videos, photographs, live projection performances, works on paper and art objects.

Relative Pitch Records American independent record label

Relative Pitch Records is an American independent record label specializing in free jazz and avant-garde jazz, free improvisation, and experimental music. Relative Pitch has been ranked among the top jazz record labels in The New York City Jazz Record and DownBeat year-end lists, and praised by publications and organizations including The Guardian, NPR Music, and The Brooklyn Rail.

References

  1. ↑ "Bears Making Bear Trees" by - The Wire , retrieved 2018-08-10
  2. ↑ Clark, Philip (January 2014). "When Classical Meets Jazz". Gramophone: 15 – via https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/37804/spread/22.{{cite journal}}: External link in |via= (help)
  3. 1 2 "Dust Clouds May Exist - Record Collector Magazine". recordcollectormag.com. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  4. ↑ "Dusted Reviews: The Howling Hex - XI". www.dustedmagazine.com. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  5. ↑ "Love as Laughter: Holy Album Review | Pitchfork". pitchfork.com. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  6. 1 2 "Robbie Lee: Breathing New Life into Ancient Winds". The Log Journal. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  7. ↑ "Arone Dyer's Dronechoir Miracle & Mahogany L. Browne played Ecstatic Music Fest (pics)". BrooklynVegan. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  8. ↑ "Listen to Ezra Feinberg's West African-Inspired "Kernel & Shell"". pastemagazine.com. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  9. ↑ "Che Chen & Robbie Lee — The Spectrum Does (Audiomer)". dusted. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  10. ↑ "Heresy of the Free Spirit, Jozef Van Wissem". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  11. ↑ Meyer, Bill (Fall 2012). "Josef van Wissen Interview". Signal to Noise. 64: 8 – via https://issuu.com/stnguy/docs/stn_64_final.compressed.{{cite journal}}: External link in |via= (help)
  12. ↑ "AMN Reviews: Norbert Rodenkirchen / Robbie Lee / James Ilgenfritz – Opalescence [Telegraph Harp]". Avant Music News. 2018-07-02. Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  13. ↑ "Bernstein's Contentious 'Mass': The Week in Classical Music" . Retrieved 2018-08-10.
  14. ↑ "The Playlist: Thom Yorke's Chilling Ballad, and 13 More New Songs" . Retrieved 2018-09-10.
  15. ↑ Williger, Jonathan (May 6, 2022). "Ben Vida and Lea Bertucci, Murmurations". Pitchfork.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.