Chris Alford

Chris Alford and Majid Araim meet somewhere between the forest floor and the edge of the known musical universe. The gutsy duo is an improvising unit working with mandolin, violin, acoustic guitars, and voices. Their music begins with the familiar sounds of acoustic strings but quickly moves beyond their expected territory. Strings are bowed, plucked, struck, scraped, muted, prepared, and coaxed into sounds that seem to come from somewhere beyond the fretboards and hollow chambers that try to contain them.

Their approach is immediate, playful, and highly interactive. Notes are sprinkled as well as hammered into place. A sound appears, hangs briefly in the air, and leaves a ripple of interaction behind it. One gets the sense the two are daring one another to boost not the intensity but the level of surprise. Like mycelium beneath the forest floor, their interactions form unexpected connections. Familiar and strange at once, the music grows through focus, curiosity, and discovery, becoming a small ecosystem unique to each time and place.

Crustose takes its name from a form of lichen that clings tightly to stone, becoming almost inseparable from it. The music works in a similar way: intimate, mysterious, slightly peculiar, and always in the process of becoming.

Alford, Lipson, and Peake convene somewhere at the intersection of free improvisation, group telepathy, and questionable life choices. Maps and recipes are ignored. Agendas dissolve at first tone. Every sound is an invitation, every interruption a welcome guest, and every wrong turn opens another improbable door. These sounds were not assembled so much as encountered.

Cooked is less a collection of tracks than a series of shared hallucinations. They crawl, bloom, evaporate, argue with themselves, and occasionally wink at the listener before disappearing into psychedelic vapor. 

Chris Alford-guitar
Evan Lipson- bass
Justin Peake- drums