Concentration

by Susan Alcorn

Concentration cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: 2004
  • Label: Recorded
  • Country: United States
  • Length: 1:01:01
  • Community rating: 4.14/5 from 5 ratings

Album Notes & Community Reviews

Documenting a solo pedal steel performance, this album highlights the artist's completely idiosyncratic approach to her instrument. By moving away from country and Western swing traditions toward a language of free improvisation and spatial electronics, Alcorn creates a sparse and dissonant soundscape that redefines the sonic possibilities of the steel guitar.

Genres

Descriptors: dissonant, improvisation, instrumental, avant-garde, experimental

Tracklist

  1. Four Mountains, Four Rivers (22:56)
  2. Silence Like a Breaking Glass (1:34)
  3. The Silence Was Your Grey Butterfly Urine and Bedsores (9:57)
  4. Olivier Messiaen's Morning Conjugal Death Waltz (6:28)
  5. The Queen Is Always Pregnant (6:11)
  6. Time Was Nothing (11:04)
  7. And Who Could I Ask If It Wasn't You? (2:48)

Credits

  • Susan Alcorn - primary artist, pedal steel guitar
  • Audrey Chen - cello, voice
  • Karen Stackpole - gong [gongs]
  • Andrea Parkins - keyboards
  • L锚 Quan Ninh - percussion
  • Todd Whitman - reeds
  • Joe McPhee - reeds, trumpet
  • Jesse Quattro - voice, electronics

More from Susan Alcorn: full discography