Alex Wand

The long-awaited new Partch Ensemble album is out! In Harry Partch's words, The Wayward is “a collection of musical compositions based on the spoken and written words of hobos and other characters—the result of my wanderings in the Western part of the United States from 1935 to 1941.”

Hello friends! On the summer solstice, I'll be releasing Spectre, a 36-minute electroacoustic work that is a major component of my dissertation at UC Santa Cruz. The piece is comprised of field recordings from the Monarch Waystation Soundmap (MWS) project, and the complete materials—music, score, and dissertation essay—will be available on my Bandcamp.

Pre-order Spectre

Massive thanks to the MWS core collaborators who infused the project with their love, sweat, and creativity: Lydia Barrett (Ursa La Verre), Erik Miron (Comrade Caracol), Kyle Baker, Jessica Hemingway, and Stephanie Cheng Smith. For anyone interested, check out this wonderful 10-minute special on MWS by audio documentary maker Lusen Mendel that recently aired on KALW.

NYCEMF

In celebration of the release, cellist Ivan Carames and I will be performing Spectre as part of the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival on June 26th at the Sheen Center for Art and Culture in Greenwich Village. If you’re in the area, message me for the details!

Upcoming Shows

A Dawn and Two Dusks on May 30th and 31st at the Arboretum, Santa Cruz. Curated by Anna Friz, performing with Balakrishnan Raghavan and Rodrigo Barriga.

Rufus' Retreat (a solo guitar set) on June 7th, 4pm at Solarc, Los Angeles

Partch Ensemble on June 13th and 14th at REDCAT, Los Angeles

Two Tides on exhibit at ICOSA in Austin, playing on loop from sunset to sunrise in their art gallery, collaboration with Kathryn Shuman

Have a great Spring/Summer!

<3

Announcement: I've accepted a teaching position at the University of Michigan! 

Kathryn Shuman and I are releasing an album on SADFAM Records! We're celebrating with a performance at Solarc Brewing in Los Angeles on March 23rd, 5pm wsg/Steve Blum. Hope to see you there. More info on the release below.

"Two Tides" is a meditative journey in which ethereal tones float serenely over field recordings of the sea. Like the rolling of the tide beneath the waves, Kathryn Shuman's vocals and Alex Wand's viola da gamba form subtle currents that draw the listener from moment to moment. Recorded in Los Angeles and Santa Cruz, California, this piece explores the ocean's contrasts, ebbing and flowing between the fleeting and the timeless.

-Erik Miron

We were thinking a lot about temporality when we made this. The irregular rhythms of the waves overlapping with the longer-scale time of the grotto in which they were recorded (Mitchell’s Cove in Santa Cruz). The grotto, carved out by the tides over many years, became the resonant body for the sounds of those same waves in the piece.

-Alex and Kat

9am-5pm: A looping installation of Monarch Waystation Soundmap (film) and Spectre (electroacoustic composition).

8pm: A set by Rodrigo Barriga followed by a live performance of Specre by Alejandro Botijo Madrid, Ivan Caramés, and Human Hemingway.

Tickets here!

Hello friends,

Kyle Baker and I created a film about the MWS project! The film contains new arrangements of sounds and songs made during our long-distance cycling pilgrimages and highlights some of our core collaborators: Jessica Hemingway (dance), Erik Miron (music), and Lydia Barrett (animation). In the film, we explore themes such as embodied listening, cycling stories from the road, and ecological futurism. We highlight the Western monarch’s perspectives, histories, and migratory challenges as well as the project's music practices.

We are excited to present our new monarch film at Solarc in Los Angeles this Wednesday at 7:30pm. See you there!

Best,

New release!

"A Song Begins" is a musical manifesto set to synth-activated ocean waves. I'm happy to be releasing this on sadfam records as I made it in the context of this community and because this piece reflects our broad conception of “song” — encompassing everything from field recordings to electronic pieces to folk tunes.

The cover artwork is by my friend Sarah Butler, who is an artist and dancer—I'm a big fan of her work. I've always loved her embroidered photographs, so I commissioned her to make the artwork in that style. The picture is of the beach in Santa Cruz, where I took the field recording heard in the piece.

During the pandemic, Sarah and I were exchanging letters when Sarah was living on a farm in the Midwest. After I wrote this manifesto, I sent it to her by mail. She was one of the first people to read it, and she wrote me a letter back that was encouraging. It was part of the reason why I've decided to release it.

It's available on bandcamp and streaming platforms. Thank you for listening!