@infrasonicpress.bsky.social
Independent record label based in Erie, PA, releasing music by adventurous Rust Belt-based artists. https://linktr.ee/infrasonicpress
Root Cellar performing “Wet Heel” from new album, Fermentations
09.07.2025 13:31 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
"Garlic Bread Problems," one of the most experimental tracks on Root Cellar's new album, was featured on @ingrownrecords.bsky.social radio show, Found Sounds Extreme. The show's 31st episode features Root Cellar alongside many other exciting tracks.
www.mixcloud.com/foundsoundse...
Our Album of the Week this week comes from Buffalo improvisational post-jazz outfit Root Cellar, with their freestyle new EP, 'Fermentations.' @infrasonicpress.bsky.social
buffablog.com/root-cellar-...
Artwork by Ruby Merritt, who did the cover art for Root Cellar’s new album, Fermentations.
rootcellarmusic.bandcamp.com/album/fermen...
Fermentations, the new album by Buffalo-based post-jazz quintet ROOT CELLAR, is available now on all platforms.
rootcellarmusic.bandcamp.com/album/fermen...
Lastly, the album was included in North Star Sounds' 2024 Year in Review back in January, counting it as one of their favorite albums of the year alongside the likes of the Tomeka Reid Quartet and Wadada Leo Smith & Amina Claudine Myers!
www.mixcloud.com/North_Star_S...
From JazzWord:
"Finely crafted without the need for raucous passages, McNeill and company have created striking chamber improv and one created far from major Jazz centres."
www.jazzword.com/reviews/mich...
From All About Jazz:
"Over a decade and a half McNeill has matured as an artist without losing his sense of adventure or his explorative spirit. 4 stars"
www.allaboutjazz.com/barcode-poet...
Recent praise for Michael McNeill's Barcode Poetry:
From Percorsi Musicali: "Every note, touch or idea of Alcorn is simply magical, often transforming the music into a dream-like, almost psychedelic, highly immersive listening experience."
www.percorsimusicali.eu/2025/03/04/m...
It's #BandcampFriday! Today @bandcamp.com is waiving their revenue share, which means all proceeds from sales go directly to artists & labels--or in the case of the Rust Belt Artists Against Gen0cjde compilation, to orgs working for a Free P@lestine.
infrasonicpress.bandcamp.com
Bandcamp Friday is back for 2025. On March 7, we’ll once again waive our revenue share, ensuring more money goes directly to artists. Last year, fans spent $3.1 million in a single day—the biggest since 2022. Let’s keep that momentum going. Mark your calendars and get your wishlist ready.
04.03.2025 17:52 — 👍 273 🔁 177 💬 4 📌 60
See also Ian Patterson's reflection in @allaboutjazz.bsky.social:
www.allaboutjazz.com/remembering-...
Recent remembrances of Susan Alcorn have been published, including an obituary in @nytimes.com:
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/a...
In her final years, Susan would close her sets with an arrangement of exiled Spanish cellist Pablo Casals’s “A Song with the Birds,” which she would dedicate to refugees across the world.
You can see one such performance here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TPr...
It was one of our greatest honors as a label to release Michael McNeill's Barcode Poetry, a record on which Susan played. Susan's performance on that album was adventurous and beautiful. Our thoughts are with Michael, Shelly, and Dave, who are mourning the loss of their friend and bandmate.
04.02.2025 02:19 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
We are grieving the recent passing of the pioneering pedal steel player Susan Alcorn.
Susan took pedal steel far beyond its traditional roles. After years in country/western bands, she expanded the vocabulary of her instrument through 20th century music, visionary jazz, and world musics.
We are excited to announce that three of our recent releases are now available at SquidCo, an online music store that sells improvised, composed, experimental, and other unusual music.
Barcode Poetry by Michael McNeill
Vellum by Crossfire Duo
WORK by Wooden Cities
www.squidco.com
Rust Belt Artists Against Gen*cide was reviewed by @acloserlisten, in a thoughtful piece by Richard Allen:
acloserlisten.com/2025/01/12/v...
Shu Fee Atfal ‘am Tebkee (Why Are the Children Crying?)
Performed by Nibal Abd El Karim
from Rust Belt Artists Against Gen*cide (2024)
Earlier this month, we lost trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer Herb Robertson (1951-2024).
His sound was marked by as much by a sensitive lyricism as it was by a curiosity-driven experimentalism. He will be missed.
Null Point has published “De-normalizing ‘Wide Open Spaces:’ Notes Towards a Decolonial Performance Practice”
Written by @colintuckerstudio.bsky.social, it concerns their realization of Yoko Ono’s “Hide Piece,” from Rust Belt Artists Against Gen*cide.
nullpointseries.wordpress.com/words/de-nor...
Today we joined hundreds of musicians—including Deerhoof, Kathleen Hanna, Open Mike Eagle, and David Grubbs—in demanding that major labels drop a lawsuit aimed to destroy the Internet Archive—and for their industry to take action to realign w/the interests of working artists.
www.savethearchive.com
black text on white background: Dearest People of Palestine, I have never lived under the threat of war or in a violent homeland. I cannot imagine your fear or trauma. I do not know physical war, but live with disdain, disgust, dismissal, and I know first-hand that violence lives where empathy does not. While I do not pray, I share my words and personal experience, with vulnerability and as my oath. I stand with, and in defense of marginalized and oppressed people everywhere. I cannot take your pain. Alone, I cannot end your suffering. But I can work for, not against you. May the ’More’ I send, reach you in the form of peace and autonomy. Liz Slagus More for Palestine You slice my body into breasts ass thighs belly. My mind is a craveable thing. You call me fat overweight obese big pig disgusting. I’ll introduce myself more clearly next time.
black text on white background: You judge my food outfit haircut space I take on the bus, plane, train. I believe in the powers of consent. You offer me pills diets surgery your pity. I want to talk to you about joy and pleasure. You worry about my pounds numbers health morbidity. I think you have enough on your plate. You question my appetite portion size self-worth self-esteem. I’m happy. Are you?
black text on white background: You expect me to call myself fat plus-size curvy brave voluptuous liberated. I see myself as an individual. Let me introduce you to my passions talents desires interests vices successes. Is a big life also wrong? With my body I educate curate mentor bake make interrogate collaborate communicate. Why do you still need me to apologize?
black text on white background: I fill my life with family friends loves colleagues animals plants. Why can’t you see the beauty in my fullness? I own my extra excess greatness surplus more means more. I don’t owe you fat. In solidarity, with my whole heart and body, Liz Slagus
Liz Slagus is an artist, curator, educator, writer, and provocateur. She has developed programs for EMPAC, Eyebeam, and NY Hall of Science.
The Sex Ed Bakeshop is her latest tool for engaging the public in conversations about what holistic sexual health is and should look like. 4/4
white text on black background: Megan Kyle One, Two, One (2024) for solo oboe I wrote One, Two, One to be a small part of an event called Imagine Palestine in Rochester, NY on August 23, 2024. Co-organized by Unabridged Literary Arts, Mara Ahmed, and Matthew McDonald, the event was a fundraiser for the Gaza Municipality, and featured poetry readings and music. The piece is inspired by the poem I Am You by Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian scholar of English literature, poet, professor of literature and creative writing, and co-founder of the organization We Are Not Numbers. On December 6, 2023, Alareer was killed by an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza along with his brother, sister, and four of his nephews. I Am You is addressed to an Israeli soldier. It’s about the parallels between the genocide suffered by the Jewish people, and the genocide that Israel is inflicting on the Palestinian people. When I read it, I think about the horror of a traumatized group of people reacting to that trauma by traumatizing another group of people. One, Two, One for solo oboe imagines mirrors and blurred doubles. As I wrote it, I thought about the visceral resistance to facing and recognizing the mirror. I imagined a mirror that was itself in denial. I am a Jew who is opposed to what Israel has done and is doing to the Palestinian people. Writing this piece is one way for me to look into the mirror. The full text of Alareer’s poem follows…
white text on black background: Refaat Alareer I Am You Two steps: one, two. Look in the mirror: The horror, the horror! The butt of your M-16 on my cheekbone The yellow patch it left The bullet-shaped scar expanding Like a swastika, Snaking across my face, The heartache flowing Out of my eyes dripping Out of my nostrils piercing My ears flooding The place. Like it did to you 70 years ago Or so. I am just you. I am your past haunting Your present and your future. I strive like you did. I fight like you did. I resist like you resisted And for a moment, I’d take your tenacity As a model, Were you not holding The barrel of the gun Between my bleeding Eyes.
white text on black background: One. Two. The very same gun The very same bullet That had killed your Mom And killed your Dad Is being used, Against me, By you. Mark this bullet and mark in your gun. If you sniff it, it has your and my blood. It has my present and your past. It has my present. It has your future. That’s why we are twins, Same life track Same weapon Same suffering Same facial expressions drawn On the face of the killer, Same everything Except that in your case The victim has evolved, backward, Into a victimizer. I tell you. I am you. Except that I am not the you of now.
white text on black background: I do not hate you. I want to help you stop hating And killing me. I tell you: The noise of your machine gun Renders you deaf The smell of the powder Beats that of my blood. The sparks disfigure My facial expressions. Would you stop shooting? For a moment? Would you? All you have to do Is close your eyes (Seeing these days Blinds our hearts.) Close your eyes, tightly So that you can see In your mind’s eye. Then look into the mirror. One. Two. I am you. I am your past. And killing me, You kill you.
Megan performs as a soloist, improviser, chamber musician, and orchestral musician with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Wooden Cities, Null Point, Senso di Voce, and The Evolution of the Arm. 3/4
Her piece can be heard here:
infrasonicpress.bandcamp.com/track/one-tw...
Megan contributed an oboe piece, "One, Two, One" inspired by a poem by Refaat Alareer.
Liz contributed the poem, "More, for Palestine".
Both are introspective reflections, examining who one is in the face of cruelty, and what one can do w/their resources, identities, and body in response. 2/4
Profiling work featured in our recent project, Rust Belt Artists Against Gen*cide.
Today we feature Buffalo-based oboist Megan Kyle and NY-based artist Liz Slagus 1/4…
infrasonicpress.bandcamp.com/album/rust-b...
If your inbox is blowing up, that's cuz it's #BandcampFriday.
In the case of our recent release, Rust Belt Artists Against Gen*cide, that means 10% more revenue for orgs working to end occupation, settlement, and indigenous erasure in Pa1estine.
infrasonicpress.bandcamp.com/album/rust-b...
…you can also donate to the organization directly:
6/6
goodbricks.org/cause/palest...
Profits from Rust Belt Artists Against Gen*cide will support PYM. 5/6
infrasonicpress.bandcamp.com/album/rust-b...
Current PYM actions include a campaign to pressure shipping company Maersk to cut ties with the Israeli military. This is part of a larger project of establishing a People's Arms Embargo, partnering with organized labor to stop the supply chain of genocide at the bottom. 4/6
www.maskoffmaersk.com
