Album Release: Austin Wulliman: The News From Utopia

The News From Utopia is JACK violinist Austin Wulliman's debut album as composer. The record is a solo project built from many multi-tracked layers of Wulliman, which he composed, recorded and mixed.

The live experience will incorporate electronics built of samples from the album, as well as live performances from JACK Quartet and video by JACK Studio artist Iván Decoud. Additionally, the concert includes the US Premiere of Down Pat for electric guitar and electronics, written for the unique talents of guitarist and composer Alec Goldfarb.

The News is built from a web of musical conspiracy theories that coalesce into imagery and a nonlinear network of narrative. A field of pixels comes into focus, a series of images scroll past your phone screen, a dark veil falls over the noonday sun, a nightscape of the desert melts into the sea roiling with whitecaps and you wake up with your heart racing, eyes wide. Wulliman's latest work, Down Pat, tunes the guitar to the electrical ground, using MIDI interface to control an extended ratio-based tuning system. 50 hz, 60 hz, 440 hz and an increasing concatenation of 11s and 5s and 3s build a network of polyrhythm, harmony, and scalar logics that our plugged-in guitar hero embodies: the king is his castle. The performance also features a video premiere by Argentinian multimedia artist Iván Decoud for the track BLINK.

Program: all by Austin Wulliman

SYSTEM NOTES (2023) – World Premiere for string quartet and electronics
BLINK (2022) – World Premiere for string quartet, electric guitar and electronics
Down Pat (2023) – US Premiere for electric guitar and electronics
-Alec Goldfarb, guitar
The Late Edition (2023) - World Premiere for string quartet
Lost One (2024) — World Premiere for string quartet
The Docks (2022) – World Premiere for string quartet and electronics
The News From Utopia (ii) (2024) – World Premiere for string quartet and electronics