pc: Daniel Southard
Southeast of Rain, a duo comprised of pipa player Sophia Shen and vocalist Lemon Guo, are composer-performers, sound artists, and longtime collaborators with an enthusiastically experiential and interdisciplinary approach to their art. They created their debut album, 42 Days, from a fruitful residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin, California in the fall of 2019. Resolving to compose a new work each day of their residency, Shen and Guo collected field recordings during “soundwalks” in their local environment and documented their various improvisatory sessions. 42 Days features eight of their compositions, accompanied by descriptions from the composers that read more as introspective journal entries than as formal program notes. These reminiscences are fascinating, unvarnished insights into the unique genesis of each work… more