alone-a

alone-a, my solo sonic project, explores memory and moment through tapestries of voice, digital delays, and signal processing. Every sound comes from my voice, transformed through an ever-evolving Max/MSP instrument to surprising, chaotic, and ecstatic ends.

Liveness is at the heart of this project. The unique quirks of the instrument ensure that no two performances are ever the same—each is a distinct moment shared with listeners in the room.

I was honored to receive the 2022 Minnesota Music Creator Award from the American Composers Forum.

“She creates choir-like harmonies with sinister undertones like a chamber of echoes... The echo takes the voice, repeats, and returns the voice to itself as different, as other.”

— Livy Snyder, Sixty Inches from Center

EXP/VOX (2024)

EXP/VOX, organized by Anna Johnson at TriTriangle as an exploration of the voice, featured alone-a along with Anna Johnson, Paige Naylor, Maya Nguyen, and maoϴ.

This improvised set included an experimentation with Neutone. Using real-time digital sound processing, I turn micro samples of my voice into other radically new sonic styles, preserving its core character.

Here, I’m using a model trained on the famous Amen Break, turning voice into drums. Like many aspects of my set up, it’s a bit chaotic and unpredictable, but sometimes it works beautifully.

My performance starts at 8:04.

Recorded in Chicago, IL on April 19, 2024

Video: Anna Johnson

Memories Project (2023)

Throughout 2023 I collaborated with experimental filmmaker Michael Wellvang, who explores early internet-era aesthetics using found video as well as his own footage shot on first-generation digital cameras.

Over the course of several months, we crafted a video collage taken from videos uploaded to Youtube in 2006, its first year of existence.

Our collaboration culminated in a residency at Tamarack Land Co-op, where we installed CRT TVs throughout their chapel, and I improvised along to the visuals.

Recorded in Hovland, Minnesota on October 21, 2023

Video: Michael Wellvang

Envelop Deep Listening Series (2023)

This incredible series hosted by Jesse Whitney at Mirror Lab invites audience members into deep listening. I performed an improvised set inspired, in part, by Charles Bukowski’s poem Flophouse:

those men
were all
children
once
what has happened
to
them?
and what has
happened
to
me?

Recorded in Minneapolis, MN on December 21, 2023

Video: Charles Hainsworth

Landscape Stories: Helen Allison Savanna (2022)

I collaborated with landscape architect, artist, and writer Regina M Flanagan to score a 19-minute experimental documentary film about the Helen Allison Savanna, located near Bethel, Minnesota.

Landscape Stories: Helen Allison Savanna covers the human and non-human histories of the 80-acre area, including its namesake (a botanist who spent twenty years studying grasses), its inhabitants (old growth burr oaks), and its role bringing fire back to the prairie (it was the site of The Nature Conservancy’s first prescribed burn in 1962).

Available for viewing: contact Regina for more information.

Elapse (2022)

An improvised experiment using the arpeggiator function on my Arturia Keystep. The insistent beat of the arpeggiator can only exist when I am singing. My voice, and the limits of my breath support, become a parameter in themselves.

Recorded at home on December 16, 2022.

Untitled (2022)

Trio improvisation featuring alone-a.

A. Horton: Max/MSP, Voice
M. Stahlmann: ECB+, Osc., Sampler
W. Statler: Drum, FM, Voice
P. Marschke: Engineer

Recorded live to tape in my living room on May 19, 2022

Lament (2019)

An improvised excerpt from a longer improvised piece. Headphones recommended.

Recorded at home on June 17, 2019.

Press