#ablehearts

Thomas Arsenault is 27 years old, but he doesn’t look a day over 20. And yet, judging from all that he’s accomplished so far, you’d think that he was much, much older: he speaks four languages, has lived for extended periods of time on different continents and is something of a prodigy when it comes to tackling things like video editing or figuring out how to use strange new musical instruments. “I’d say I’m choirboy in spirit, but more ecstatic,” he says.

The Brooklyn studio out of which he works has produced albums for Light Asylum, Mirror Mirror and Tim DeWitt of Gang Gang Dance. Arsenault’s own music and video work is lush and emotive, filled with subtle nuances that somehow jerk the audience into deep self-reflexive awareness.

“Life Way Up From” by Ablehearts (EXCLUSIVE) 

His most recent project was born out of a random encounter with Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Reiner of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company after they heard his elusive first album, “The Flood”, which Arsenault had produced under the name Ablehearts (a name he also regularly performs under). Mitchell and Reiner instantly recognized the music as the necessary musical element to their piece “Nox,” which was to eventually include live readings by the Canadian poet Anne Carson. If you are lucky enough to be near the College of St. Elizabeth in Morristown, N.J., this Saturday evening, you will find Arsenault (along with his frequent collaborator Michael Beharie) providing a live soundtrack to “Nox,” based on “The Flood.”