Sunset Sound . Joe Westerlund & Trever Hagen . Opening with Sarah Elstran

A musical project born from a long-running friendship, beginning during their Midwestern childhood, and followed by intermittent distance across regions, countries and cultures, Joe Westerlund and Trever Hagen are metamorphosing from their individual solo practices into a comprovisational duo. The sound world these two inhabit pays respect to the lineage of trumpet/drum combinations found in the jazz and ambient idioms, while reaching back to the pairing’s advent in ancient battle cries. On Sunday night at Sunset (4:28pm) they will perform one set of elegant ambient improvisation on melodic themes, fragments and noise.

Trever Hagen is a trumpet player and producer who has collaborated with a range of musicians and ensembles (Bon Iver, Mouse on Mars, Marijuana Deathsquads, CARM, Aero Flynn) and is one-third of the electronica pop trio, Heavy MakeUp, along with Edie Brickell and CJ Camerieri. Hagen's solo trumpet electronica albums have been released by the labels 37d03d, Audiotong, Music of New Reference and No Icon.

Joe Westerlund has emerged as an intuitive improviser and composer during the last decade, scoring deep meditative practice over the course of three full-length solo records. Westerlund—a longtime student of Milford Graves—has now spent more than a quarter-century gleaning lessons from folk musicians and avant-garde icons, from close friends and challenging strangers alike. He served as the dynamic backbone of Megafaun, the North Carolina trio of sophisticated songwriting and winning charisma that he cofounded. As a session drummer, he has worked as the pulse beneath the plaintive Americana of Watchhouse, Daughter of Swords, and Jake Xerxes Fussell and been a textural anchor for the folk abstraction of Califone and Bon Iver. Currently, he tours and records primarily in an improvisational trio, Setting (with Jaime Fennelly and Nathan Bowles), and as a solo artist on Psychic Hotline.

Sarah Elstran is an independent musician that bridges the gap between bright-eyed pop composition and hands-on atmospheric live layering of voice. Her vocal loops give us the kind of detail and wide multi-octave range that we might come to expect from a marquee pop star, while her production decisions continually keep us guessing as to what rabbit holes her tracks might fall into next.

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