Records: Some music (and albums) about Patrick Higgins: Dossier and Versus
Patrick Higgins is an American avant-garde composer, guitarist, and producer from New York City, known for his work in experimental and contemporary classical music. Higgins plays guitar and composes in Zs, described by The New York Times as "one of the strongest avant-garde bands in New York." Heralded as a "formidable concert music composer" and "one of the most gifted guitarists working today", Higgins has received attention for bridging traditions including baroque chamber music, contemporary noise, and 20th century minimalism.
Patrick Higgins - Composer//Guitarist (patrickhigginsmusic.com)
“Dossier,” is a new solo record of guitar and live custom electronics, all original programming and live sampling using midi triggers mapped to the guitar, a four movement work of dark intense material all performed live without overdubs or edits, this material was developed over a two-year and premiered during a European concert tour across 10 countries in Nov 2016. The record is both an engagement with contemporary electronic music and yet is entirely performed — transforming the guitar at once into an instrument and a controller, where the performer is swallowed by processes that result from the playing and at the same time envelop it. All of the samples and synthetic patches were custom built and specifically engaged to become elements of live guitar manipulation.
The sound world is post-apocalyptic in style but builds to a very intimate and introspective emotional finish. It is a consummate and highly unique aesthetic statement, engaging with the alienation and inner emotional economy of contemporary digital life, its politics, erotics, and violence. The work is also, in this respect, a meditation on the social space of the individual in the increasingly digital, alienated world. An attempt at a poetics at home with the violence and delicate, fleeting emotion of the times. Cover art is by Alfredo Jaar.
released June 1, 2018
This album marks a new direction and development of Higgins' acclaimed work as a guitarist and composer, drawing on electronic music, free improvisation, and avant-garde modern composition, VERSUS is a highly emotional and expressive work that pushes Higgins' own instrumental virtuosity into new territories.
He performs guitar, keyboards, synthesizer, drums and laptop programming across a 9-track record that traverses and transforms many aspects of Higgins' earlier work. The title track "Versus" was premiered at Monom Studios in Berlin, in a configuration for 75 surround sound speakers. Combining composed and written elements with highly-focused lyrical improvisations, VERSUS shows Higgins at his best — bridging styles and innovating new music that is harsh while seductive, intense while inviting, and always unexpected. The recording is itself a stunning achievement of electro-acoustics, beautifully created organic immersive stereo-scapes where instruments and electronics become indistinguishable, hi-fi audio at its best and most innovative. (Headphones or high quality speakers recommended.)
released July 12, 2024