Hauschka is a composer, songwriter and experimental musician who has brought an exciting new perspective to the prepared piano. The prepared piano – a technique for getting new sounds from the acoustic keyboard by resting pieces of paper or drumsticks on the strings of the instrument – has been used for centuries, but Hauschka was unaware of the tradition when, at the dawn of the new millenium, he began exploring ways to get new sounds out of his Bechstein grand upright. “I wanted the sound of a hi-hat (cymbal) to add a percussive effect to a composition I was writing. I took foil from a Christmas cake and wrapped it around the strings [inside the piano]. From there, I was inspired to use other objects on the strings to get bass drum sounds, or tacks on the piano hammers to get the sound of a harpsichord. When I was playing techno music, I had samplers where you could get a different sound on every key. I thought it would be great to have that effect on an acoustic piano. I was not aware of John Cage (one of the first 20th century composers to use prepared piano) when I started searching for ways to alter the sound of the keyboard, but as I got more into prepared piano, I was influenced by Cage’s theories.”
 
The Prepared Piano, Hauschka’s first recording using prepared piano, was a solo album of spontaneous improvisations. The sounds he generated changed the course of his musical journey and he’s since used prepared piano in a variety of settings. On Ferndorf, pieces composed in honor of his childhood home in Germany, he balanced improvisation with compositions that featured cellists, trombonists and violinists playing his inventive arrangements. The ‘acoustic techno’ of Salon des Amateurs featured drummers Samuli Kosminen (Múm), and Joey Burns and John Convertino (Calexico) and dropped subtle electro effects into the mix. On Silfra, an improvised collaboration with classical violinist Hilary Hahn, he dipped into classical music and ambient pop to create an expansive soundscape. With Abandoned City, Hauschka returns to the solo prepared piano to produce an evocative work full of unexpected grace notes and mysterious sounds.
 
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Sontag Shogun official site | Sontag Shogun on Facebook | Sontag Shogun on Instagram
 
Sontag Shogun is a collaborative trio that makes use of analog sonic treatments in harmony with nostalgic solo piano compositions to depict abstract places in our memory. Textures built from organic materials such as sand, slate, boiling water, brush and dried leaves, both produced live in performance and recorded to weathered 1/4″ tape warm up the space between lush piano themes. All of which is abstracted coolly in the reflective digital space of treated vocals and a live-processed feed from the piano. Bringing us back, like a faded passing scent or any natural emotive trigger, but to where? The wordless journey there will inevitably be more revealing than the destination itself. 
 
Ian Temple, piano
Jeremy Young, tapes, oscillators, objects & surfaces
Jesse Perlstein, laptop, field recordings, voice
 
Sontag Shogun has shared the stage with notable artists such as Hauschka, Mountains, Julia Kent, R. Luke DuBois, Aki Onda, Tom Carter, Alexander Turnquist, Matana Roberts, Chris Forsyth, Sam Shalabi, Noveller, Erik Friedlander, Patrick Higgins, thisquietarmy and many others. Beyond mounting several successful tours across the US, Canada, Europe, Japan and China, the trio has performed at festivals including the New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1, Mono No Aware Film Festival, Jue Music and Arts in Shanghai, and their commissioned film/video work has been shown at You Are Here in Canberra, The Others Fair in Torino, Singapore International Film Fest, Seattle International Film Fest as well as Bumbershoot, Los Angeles Shorts Fest, Washington West Film Fest, and XV Concurso Encuentros De Arte Contemporáneo in Alicante among others.

itsnotyouitsme on New Amsterdam Records | istnotyouitsme on Bandcamp

ITSNOTYOUITSME was formed in Harlem, NYC in 2003. Members Grey McMurray and Caleb Burhans met while attending the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. They played in various musical settings together while in school, including a large improvising group called Dialects, heavily influenced by ambient, free-jazz and post-rock musics. Grey and Caleb moved to New York soon after and formed itsnotyouitsme as a means of continuing the aesthetic and objectives of Dialects. In order to create a large sound with the new stripped-down instrumentation, they began using looping devices, which play a significant role in performance as well as in the compositional process. Along with their own material, itsnotyouitsme has since performed works by composers ranging from J.S. Bach to Philip Glass.

The duo has released four acclaimed albums on New Amsterdam, walled gardens (2008) and fallen monuments (2010), everybody’s pain is magnificent (2011), and This I (2013). They have been called “gently mesmerizing” (Time Out New York), and “lush and evocative” (The Very Short List). walled gardens was listed as one of the best CDs of 2008 and regarded as “meltingly beautiful” by the New York Times.