claire rousay is a person who performs and records. She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas. Her performances and recordings explore queerness, human relationships, and self perception.
Tuufuhhoowaah / Bday Shots
Live at Elastic Arts
Both
t4t
Available Formats:
Specifically The Water
Alex Cunningham & Claire Rousay
2019
""She and violinist Alex Cunningham make a formidable improvising duo, tactile and kinetic." -Stewart Smith, The Wire"
Aerophobia
Claire Rousay
"It’s a treat to listen to, and there are moments where I thought “I didn’t know the human body could do that,” but this doesn’t appear to be the direction Rousay is moving towards. -Keith Prosk"
Digital
It Is Just So Much More Difficult
"Among the tiny pieces of this tangential pattern, motifs emerge, like a scrunching of heavy paper (lately, I keep ripping the pages of my diary right out) and a single booming drum hit honestly and repetitively as a kind of call to arms, ominous, for an impending doom, perhaps, and what is built using those bits post-destruction. The glass, a window, a mirror, by design. Descriptions that reject prescriptive understandings. Working towards solutions, not even methodically, but hypothetically and completely. Sounds of an involuntary faith, which is what faith is. -cookcook, Tiny Mix Tapes"
Several Erasures
"Maybe I got thrown off with the whole solo percussionist thing, because I assumed there’d be a lot of to-do. (And seriously, have you seen what Neil Peart plays?) But Rousay works in miniature – they don’t bang around a massive set or even a rock set, they just work with a minimal, albeit unusual, kit. And Rousay, instead of conventional rhythmic structures, intentionally eschews them for a more abstract experience. Rousay’s percussion is the physicality of everyday life. Closing your eyes and allowing the sound to overpower you will put you in familiar situations with uncommon results. -Ryan Masteller, Tiny Mix Tape"
A Heavenly Touch
2020
""holy fick, i adore this thing" - valyri, rateyourmusic.com"
Vinyl
""What makes Rousay's recent output distinct from others working in a broadly experimental and percussive manner, however, is her exceptional ability to make the sonic characteristics of any object sound like an invitation to intimacy." - Tom Piekarski"
Cassette
"Claire Rousay’s t4t is an apt release for 2019. On side a: “things you’ve said you like” she weaves in unaltered spoken fragments - sourced from “emails, texts, sexts, and voicemails” in between the minimalist, percussive textures that she is known for creating. Side b: “things i doubt you’d care about” is more tightly wound, scraping and water and breathing - an anxious and pent listen that ends abruptly and unresolved, literally edging the listener."
""claire rousay has been exploring the sensitivities of sound always in relation to "the self" and "the other", equally. Her work is always seen as a contribution, as engagement. Recording, collaging and composing become acts of considering, remembering, giving."
Claire Rousay & Carol Genetti
""Percussionist Claire Rousay's first-time encounter with improviser Carol Genetti, performing on voice, tube and electronics, captured live at Chicago's Elastic Arts performance space, for a reserved yet highly engaging set that highlights Genetti's amplified and transformed utterances through Rousay's spare but perfectly complementary interjections." - Squidco"
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