DOORS 7 / MUSIC 8
Tickets at the door
I wish I could take credit for bringing Bill Nace and Haley Fohr together, but the idea was their own. I just figured out a way to make it happen; Covid delayed the inaugural performance a year, until February of 2022, when they played the opening night concert of Frequency Festival at Constellation in Chicago, but the wait was worth it. I was and remain a huge admirer of both artists, musicians driven by gut instinct and for whom nothing is outside the realm of possibilities. Although Nace’s playing might initially hit with gale-force intensity, beneath the lacerating surface is a detail-rich poetry, as one needling phrase or another whipsaw gesture opens up a rich tapestry to slowly-morphing patterns and internal networks of sound. Nace might play guitar or he might choose tashigoto, but it doesn’t matter in the end, because he utterly transforms whatever he touches into something new.

I first heard Fohr in her Circuit des Yeux guise, where she unbound voice throbs at the heart of mini-symphonies, blending primal howls and elegant arias into a devastatingly rich art-pop. I also had the pleasure of presenting a concert where she improvised using wordless voice and electronics that opened up radically different pathways. Their work seemed miles apart but their shared fearlessness seemed to guarantee a creative supernova. There’s no point in trying to pin down or describe what happens when they collaborate, because such encounters are deliriously unpredictable, apart from the promise that what they make together will leave you confused, transformed, and reeling. What more could a listener ask for?