CS: What has been inspiring you lately?
gfm: Love has been inspiring me lately. Love as resistance, love as grief, grief as love, love as care, love in its infinite hues and shapes and colors and timbres. Love for the earth, love for the spirit(s), love for the sound, love that transforms and transmutes time, space, corporality, love that dissents, transgresses, subverts, destroys, love that touches you and changes you, love that reminds you that you are alive and that you never once take for granted that you are alive in your aliveness. Love for the stretch marks, love for the wrinkles, love for the big scars, love for the spaces in the body that harbor disease, trauma, pain, love is listening, listening to laughter of friends, their anguish, their tears, love that holds all the parts of someone and says, I love you even more. The desire for something different, the desire for love and to love and to be loved, the desire to change and be changed, the desire for revolution, the praxis of desire.
CS: Favorite musicians, artists, thinkers and why (current or general)?
gfm: Zeena Parkins, Lotte Anker, Farida Amadou, Mariá Portugal, Paula Sanchez are all phenomenal musicians, artists, and thinkers that I have been so extremely lucky to orbit these days. They are all people who see beyond seeing and listen beyond listening. They are driven, focused, honest, and very funny. Listen to their music if you haven’t already or find them playing live near you. It’ll change your life, I promise.
CS: Favorite films, books, etc. and why (current or general)
gfm: I’ve been reading Dismantling the Master’s Clock: On Race, Space, and Time by Rasheedah Phillips and I think you should too!
CS: Best thing you’ve seen on Youtube (recently)?
gfm: Also, I revisited the cat that says “Nononononono” the other night because that felt necessary in the moment but I hope that cat is ok. Oh, I also really love the Doechii Tiny Desk that came out a few months ago.
CS: Dream trio/quartet/quintet with historical figures?
gfm: I’d love to take a coffee and/ or mezcal with Ornette Coleman, Lindsay Cooper, Alejandra Pizarnik, Leroy Jenkins, and Pauline Oliveros. I don’t know if we’d play music, but I think it would be a great and totally bizarre party and I’m down for that.
CS: Last performance you saw that expanded the way you think about your own
work?
gfm: I think I’m always listening and expanding the way I think about my own work whether I’m listening to a duck or looking at a color, etc. I heard OTTO (Camille Emaille: tapan, percussion, Gabriel Valtchev: tapan, percussion, Pol Small: Tapan, percussion) at Météo Festival last month and I was really impacted by the expansiveness of the electroacoustic sound, the felt dynamic between the three of them, and the form of the performance. I was reflecting about my own experience of trio dynamic, electro acoustic worlds, and how much I think about form as containers for experience.
CS: Record you most wish you had played on?
gfm: Patrick Shiroishi and I have been talking about a VOCALS ONLY duo record for awhile. Talking… maybe we are joking? But maybe not? We’re both Aries and feel like this is an important part of the equation here.
CS: You tour extensively—what’s one memorable live performance that stands out, and why?
gfm: I don’t know if I tour extensively but I am very thankful for the touring that I’ve had the privilege and pleasure to do in the past few years! I really loved playing at Météo Festival in Mulhouse in August. I was teaching a 5 day improv workshop with an amazing group of participants! I played a concert with Endless Breakfast with Mariá Portugal & Paula Sanchez, a solo concert, and a solo concert for / with babies & children and their caregivers at the library — this really stands out to me. I really felt like everyone was right there with me and I was right there with them — we made music together and I felt the honesty and resonance. It is rare as we know that young people are given the opportunity to listen and be listened to with respect & dignity valuing their capacities and capabilities, power & agency. It’s also rare that a music festival makes a space for this type of opportunity. Shout out to Mathieu Schoenahl for your organizing and your commitment.
CS: What’s one underrated or overlooked album in your discography that you’d recommend to Catalytic Sound subscribers?
gfm: Well, I’m always appreciative and amazed that anyone listens to anything I’ve recorded! I have a duo record on Bandcamp with Chilean bassist Amanda Irarrazabal called RAYAS that I think is a pretty cool documentation of our first meeting! We’re about to be in Mexico together playing a few concerts next month after I teach and play in Ensenada for the Neofonía Festival and it’ll be the first time we’re reuniting since we met in New York in 2022!
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Enjoy gabby’s Artist Profile at the Soundstream!