YATTA & HxH - Joint Record Release Show

Pioneer Works is excited to present a joint record release show by alumni music residents YATTA & HxH. YATTA will be celebrating the release of their new album PALM WINE on PTP & HxH will be celebrating the release of STARK PHENOMENA on KMRU’s OFNOT label. The meaningfulness of presenting both performances and celebrating this work is heightened by the fact that both albums were recorded, in part, during their respective music residencies at Pioneer Works.

About the artists…

YATTA (aka. ricky sallay zoker) is a Sierra Leonean-American vocalist, producer, and composer whose work spans experimental music, performance, and sound art. Their music blends textural electronic elements, looped vocals, and rich storytelling, rooted in improvisation, humor, and surprise. They have performed at MOMA PS1, The Kitchen, Sonic Acts Festival, and New Forms Festival, and have shared stages with artists such as Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Cardi B, Laraaji, L’Rain, and The Sun Ra Arkestra. A recent MFA graduate from Bard College and a former artist-in-residence at Pioneer Works and Flux Factory, they continue to explore sound as a medium for storytelling, identity, and transformation. Their work has been featured in Pitchfork, The Quietus, Nylon, Fact Magazine, and The Wire.

YATTA’s first full-band show will debut new arrangements and live adaptations of PALM WINE, featuring an ensemble led by Carlos Hernandez (band leader, keys/electronics), with Buz Donald (drums/electronics), Stefa* (vocals), + additional collaborators.

HxH

Chris Ryan Williams (trumpet & electronics) and Lester St. Louis (cello & electronics) work together as HxH (H by H). Their skills have seen them move smoothly across various situations, constantly carving out new terrain and working in new configurations of musicians at a rapid pace. While worth reading, their biographies capture only a part of their complex rhizome. HxH started about three years ago. The project is a direct response to all their activity with others and more importantly all their future leaning sonic desires. Their debut album STARK PHENOMENA is both their first studio recording and their first physical release. The album is appropriately set to be released by KMRU on his growing label OFNOT. It’s an ideal introduction to their sound world and their approach. HxH describe their music as “electroacoustic,” but until recently the presence of Black musicians in this field has been greatly overlooked and largely ignored, making this phrase only partially appropriate. What HxH do really is to always be unpredictable. Every gig is a new soundscape. Sometimes you might hear echoes of Autechre or Robert Hood but then the sound-field will open up into a new terrain all their own. Chris and Lester bring together techniques from across the sound spectrum of electronic music and also draw on their deep backgrounds in Jazz, Improvisation, Classical and Noise scenes to create a sound that is true to them. After all, these two have worked with the likes of Bennie Maupin and the music of Black Fluxus artist BenPatterson. Their rhizome is deep.

Host or Publisher Pioneer Works