Composer and percussionist Sarah Hennies has a particular knack for reading people’s minds and telepathically coaxing them to bring her snacks; by which I mean, psychology and sociology play a broad role in inspiring the Kentucky-born artist to create music with the human experience explicitly in mind. She remarked in a recent interview about how her trans identity reflects a belying of societal expectations that doing unusual things with instruments also does; and similarly, experiencing a musical piece in a concert hall is very different from listening to that piece through your phone or computer, in public or in the confines of your residence. People have “existing assumptions” about instruments if they see them being played in person. “Shit gets deeper!” as Denzel Washington in Training Day once said.
Reservoir 1: Preservation, out September 20 on Black Truffle Records, is the first of a three-part series where Hennies explores “the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind.” Supposedly Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud described the unconscious mind as a reservoir, where traumatic and secondary memories reside for future, likely unintentional influence. The other members of Meridian (Greg Stuart and Tim Feeney) + pianist Phillip Bush joined Hennies in shrouding the unconscious piano with an array of percussive gestures.
Keep an eye here for a pre-order option.
While you’re waiting, here’s Hennies at End Tymes Festival a couple of years back: