Lee Ranaldo / Booker Stardrum

Lee Ranaldo, musician, visual artist, and writer, co-founded Sonic Youth in 1981, and has been active in the New York and International music world for the past 40+ years as composer, performer and producer; exhibiting visual art and publishing several books of journals, poetry and writings on music. Most recent album In Virus Times, an instrumental acoustic piece in four parts, was released in November 2021 on Mute Records, A new collaborative quartet album with Jim Jarmusch, Churning of the Ocean, was released by Trost Records in May 2021. Recent live performances with partner Leah Singer, Contre Jour, have been large scale, multi-projection sound & light events with suspended electric guitar phenomena that challenge the usual performer/audience relationship.

The In Virus Times album was recorded in September 2020 at home in lower Manhattan during dark pandemic days, as we came out of a deadly summer. A heightened sense of anxiety stemming from the then-upcoming US Presidential elections as well as the virus seemed to pervade all aspects of life, for myself and everyone I knew. The album’s minimal quality reflects the sense of ‘motionless time’ that many of us felt. It consists of a few simple thematic elements, notes and chords ringing out, hanging in the air for a long time on that evening when the world seemed close to stopping on its axis.” Check here for more on this album: https://bit.ly/3AArfrJ

Previous album Names of North End Women – a collaboration with Raul Refree-  was released in February 2020 on Mute. Recent live performances with partner Leah Singer, Contre Jour, have been large scale, multi-projection sound+light events with suspended electric guitar phenomena that challenge the usual performer/audience relationship. Lives and works in New York City.

Booker Stardrum is an inventive percussionist, improviser, composer, and educator based in Los Angeles. Known for his work with artists like Weyes Blood ,Lee Ranaldo, and Cloud Becomes Your Hand , he is also a visionary artist in his own right. On solo releases like 2021’s Crater, he constructs dense, pan-tonal collages of abstract rhythms and processed samples, developed from improvisations and retaining their fluid, unpredictable spirit. Stardrum comes from an experimental and classical music background — his mother is flutist Stefani Starin, and his father, microtonal composer Dean Drummond, worked closely with Harry Partch . He studied jazz at SUNY Purchase, and played in several Brooklyn-based groups, including art rock bands Landlady and Cloud Becomes Your Hand , as well as absurdist experimental quartet VaVatican. Stardrum’s solo debut, Dance And, was created largely using percussion instruments and prepared drum kits, with additional synthesizer by VaVatican’s Nathaniel Morgan, who helped mix and produce the album. NNA Tapes issued the release in 2015. Stardrum appeared on Weyes Blood’s Front Row Seat to Earth and Kid Millions’ 100 Disciplines the following year.

His second album, 2018’s Temporary etc., was a pan-tonal, pan-rhythmic collage featuring contributions from co-producer John Dieterich (of Deerhoof) as well as Jaimie Branch and Starin. Stardrum worked on several cross-disciplinary projects and commissioned works in 2020 and 2021. His third album, 2021’s Crater, expanded on the techniques of his previous effort, rigorously constructing busy, intricate pieces from samples of improvised performances by an extensive cast of collaborators. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi