Racer Session #348 | Abbey Blackwell | October 30, 2016

Hello Racer folks and fans of the avant!

This Sunday at the Racer Sessions, we're so pleased to welcome bassist Abbey Blackwell to the stage. Abbey is a longtime member of the Racer Sessions community. As a performer, Abbey's work spans many genres and stylistic boundaries in projects around Seattle and far beyond. We're looking forward to welcoming Abbey back to the stage this Sunday, 8pm at Cafe Racer!

From Abbey Blackwell:

"Over the last few months, I have begun to appreciate drone music outside of it acting as background sound or white noise. A constant, more or less even sound being applied to the eardrums acts (for me) as a cool compress dimming the light on extraneous letters and numbers that fly around between the ears. As my life has gotten more busy, I've found some solace in taking a “sound bath” of sorts, either by playing or by listening to artists like Sunn 0))), Eliane Radigue, Earth, and William Basinski. Absorbing and creating drones in different forms is a meditative practice for me and helps to make me feel more grounded, in addition to being moved by the emotion and changes in the music.

The piece that I’ll be presenting for solo double bass is the beginning stage of my attempt to draw on drone music as well as traditional song forms in order to create a piece of music that can simultaneously deaden the mind and awaken an emotional response through shifting harmony.

"Absorbing and creating drones in different forms is a meditative practice for me and helps to make me feel more grounded..."

My hope for the session is that people will strive to let the constant analysis of harmony and structure fall away; to absorb the sounds witout falling into the trope of a torrent of notes for the sake of notes. Challenge yourself to take moments during improvisation to look inward and create music as an act of meditation, for we all need a moment to ourselves some time."