Sunk 45s (2025)
for tenor saxophone, electric guitar, electric organ, and percussion, plus electronics [20:00]
A: Low Point
B: Hi Cool
A: Drift & Dredge (take 1)
B: Drift & Dredge (take 2)
A: La Poussière
B: Low Point (alternate take, varispeed)
Sunk 45s is a dispatch from the bottom: the below-sea-level vantage point of South Louisiana, a drainage ditch looking back up towards the rest of North America in 2025—a continent in disarray in a time out of joint. Draw a curve from San Francisco to New York City that dips as low as possible without veering into the gulf and you’ll hit New Orleans, where you’ll find a 45-year-old
composer in a slump that matches that nadir.
Think of these vignettes as sides on vinyl 45 RPM records that could have been dug out of bayou silt. The vintage vocabulary of the swamp blues is intact: overdriven harmonica, breathy tenor sax, tremolo and slapback guitar, a spinning organ, and a rusty drum kit. Daniel Lanois may have covered a few of these tunes in the 1980’s, throwing in an omnichord and some pristine echoes. In Ensemble Nikel’s present-day version, instruments are retuned into a microtonal haze, digital effects are run through a laptop into both amps and makeshift coffee tin speakers, and subtly stretching loops create a maze of temporal shifts…
Sunk 45s was co-commissioned by The Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust – TIME:SPANS Festival and TUP/Philharmonie Essen – NOW! Festival. It was premiered by Ensemble Nikel on August 13, 2025 in New York City.