Music pals, Lexie Mountain (sound art) and Nat Baldwin (double bass) collide for three sets of amazing music. Each will play solo and then in duet. Lexie has been a champion and leader of experimental culture, sound, film, and performance art in Baltimore. Nat Baldwin pushes double bass performance technique to its outer boundaries. A student of Braxton, he has played with many of the Red Room’s favorite performers. They will team up to give you a night of uncanny musical experiences.
Nat is releasing a new album that you can preorder now. Autonomia: Body Without Organs will be available in February! Come witness his non-idiomatic virtuosity and buy yourself a copy.
Nat Baldwin – AUTONOMIA I: Body Without Organs – Album Teaser from Ryan Marshall on Vimeo.
Nat Baldwin is a musician and writer living in Portland, Maine. He began playing double bass in high school and studied jazz performance at the Hartt School of Music before dropping out to pursue his own musical interests outside the confines of academia. In 2001, he moved to Middletown, CT to immerse himself in the Wesleyan experimental music community, studying with Anthony Braxton and performing with such artists as Mary Halvorson, Charlie Looker, Nate Wooley, Tatsuya Nakatani, Daniel Carter, Jack Wright, and Jessica Pavone. His first solo album, Solo Contrabass, appeared in 2003 on Peacock Recordings, featuring studies in extended bowing techniques ranging from aggressive noise to lowercase minimalism. In 2005, Baldwin’s solo music took a turn toward linear melody and form, shaping a unique voice in the singer-songwriter tradition and releasing several critically acclaimed albums while touring extensively. In addition to his solo work, Baldwin has been a core member of Dirty Projectors (’05-’06, ’09-’19), while also contributing to albums by Grizzly Bear, Department of Eagles, and others. His first book, The Red Barn, a collection of experimental short fiction, was released in 2017 on Calamari Archive, Inc, while concurrently finishing a BA in English at the University of Southern Maine. In 2019, Baldwin’s interest in non-linear musical forms and textural abstractions returned to the forefront of his creative output. AUTONOMIA I: Body Without Organs will be released on Shinkoyo in February 2020, marking the beginning of a series of new solo work.
Photo credit: Elisabeth Fuchsia
Lexie Mountain is a founder and member of the experimental a capella collective Lexie Mountain Boys and lead vocalist of avant-rock group Scroll Downers. She collects field recordings, writes and performs poetry and jokes, and makes watercolor paintings. Recent work includes recordings and performances with Israel Patterson as Patterson Mountain Park Rangers, and Mike Haleta (Alfred NY), Matt Wellins (Nyack NY) and Kevin Winter (Philadelphia PA) as HWWM.