"Their encounter is refreshingly inclusive, referencing American folk and minimalist forms, Incus-school string splatter, and 20th century sci-fi soundtracks..." - The Wire
"...Pape's playing is diligently entropic, Hanses orchestrates on the fly, sustaining an ongoing tension between structure and dissolution." - Bill Meyer
"...closely-held textural explorations to total sonic mayhem at the drop of hat." - Foxy Digitalis
Shawn and Nathan’s meandering musical and geographic paths crossed in Middle America the summer of 2019. Drawing off of mutual practices in free improvisation and interests in acoustic phenomena, they quickly developed an animate language using traditional folk tunings as a shared point of departure into the unknown. Joys of All Barriers was recorded in-studio shortly after their first performances in Tulsa and Kansas City. You can hear their personal tendencies toward sonic introspection―as documented on their respective solo releases―drawing out into a social exchange that pushes their own expectations. At times lush, dense, sparse, harsh, textural, haunting, bubbly, beautiful, the tracks on this record tie together a wide range of expression into an expansive listening experience―a unique universe all should hear.
Shawn E Hansen is a composer, improviser, phonographer, and piano technician. Instruments: synthesizer, organ, piano, saxophone. He’s the 2018 Charlotte Street Performing Arts Fellow. Practicing his own style of Great-Plains hermetic art known as Tangential Assertivism, he performs with Neal Wilson (L.A.), Chris Forsyth (PA.), Laurel Sparks (NY), and makes films with Cyrus Console. Tangential Assertivism is the practice of observing the relationship between disparate thought-objects placed in close proximity spatially or temporally. Shawn runs KJEA-radio, a transmitted conceptual space first broadcast in 1984. He studied with Maryanne Amacher, Richard Teitelbaum, George Lewis, and Pauline Oliveros at Bard in 2001.
Nathan Alexander Pape is a musician, mathematician, acoustician, and educator who, after spending most of the last decade in Brooklyn, NY, is currently residing just outside of Tulsa, OK―surrounded by oak trees and a host of wildlife. His solo practice focuses on the sonic expansion of the steel-string acoustic guitar through improvisation, generative strategies, and minimalist structures/processes. His previous releases include Ground Air on Astral Spirits (a duo record with saxophonist Patrick Breiner of Battle Trance) as well as solo works STUDIES and this point of view produced a dozen or more stories on Singleton Set Records.
credits
released May 7, 2021
Shawn E. Hansen - C15 Organ/Synthesizer
Nathan Alexander Pape - Guitar and Objects
Recorded and Mastered by Jametatone at the Infoaming Vertex, K.C.MO.
Mixed by Shawn E. Hansen & Jametatone
Design by Shawn Hansen
supported by 6 fans who also own “Joys of All Barriers”
My god, what an absolutely incredible Suite. I'll admit, I've struggled to get into Pharoah Sanders due to diving headfirst into some of his most challenging catalogue and that never worked. This is the perfect place to restart. Floating Points is new for me and I can honestly say I've never heard synthesizer music this lush and organic before. the LSO is just perfect. This is one of those albums that any serious music fan needs in their life. The perfect swan song for the great Pharaoh! 5/5 ClassyMusicSnob
supported by 4 fans who also own “Joys of All Barriers”
Eclecticism with vision and swag. This is what Americana could sound like if it wasn't bound by so many rules. Echoes of blues, movie soundtracks and Appalachian mountains. And Čapek... pure joy. jiristepan
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Recorded after overcoming serious physical issues, joy and und radiate from every note of trumpeter Steph Richard's incredible new LP. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 23, 2024