music | friday, april 25 | 7:30 PM | $20 Suggested
Featuring three of New Mexico’s finest and most recognized improvisers, the Chacon/ Nakatani/ Santistevan Trio is returning to FUSION | 708 for a rare performance on Friday, April 25 at 7:30 PM. Opening for the trio will be Marisa Demarco.
These groups first came together during the COVID lockdowns of 2020 to film performances for the (virtual) 22nd Annual High Zero Festival featuring the finest improvisers from the US and beyond. After this festival, the Chacon/ Nakatani/ Santistevan trio released Inhale/Exhale on Other Minds to critical reviews and appearing on many “album of the year” lists in Wire, Foxy Digitalis, Tiny Mix Tapes, and more. Since then, the group has come to be known for captivating and immersive performances that transcend time and space.
Tickets are $20 suggested. No one turned away for lack of funds.
ABOUT CHACON/NAKATANI/SANTISTEVAN TRIO
Comprising three of New Mexico’s finest and most diverse improvising musicians and composers – Raven Chacon, Tatsuya Nakatani, and Carlos Santistevan, this trio creates “improvisational music of urgency and deep resonance.” The trio was formed in 2020 during the pandemic when Baltimore’s High Zero Festival asked curators around the country to assemble improvisers in their regions for a streaming edition of the festival. Santa Fe bassist Carlos Santistevan invited percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, and guitarist/composer Raven Chacon to play with him, and they recorded their first official session together in Santa Fe’s San Miguel Chapel—the oldest chapel in the United States. They planned to release the recording but the hard drive containing the files was stolen from Santistevan’s car before a proper backup could be made. The trio quickly made plans to hold another recording session at the San Miguel Chapel and recently released the LP entitled, Inhale/Exhale on Other Minds Records.
The trio’s unique sound is created by their diverse and distinctive experiences in a myriad of other musical fields, including Nakatani’s time playing avant-country with Eugene Chadbourne and in his Nakatani Gong Orchestra project, Santistevan’s deep roots in the “aesthetically untethered experimental music of Northern New Mexico, and Chacon’s forays in metal and noise groups. Also a celebrated composer, Chacon, who grew up in the Navajo Nation, became the first Native American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2022 which he received for his composition, “Voiceless Mass.”
“Nakatani’s frenetic percussion provides a foundation for the buzzsaw swarm of stringed instruments from Chacon and Santistevan. Throughout the two improvisations, beats and crashes map the space, the adobe walls offering a muted and earthen resonance.” -The Wire.
Vital Weekly wrote of the album, “Organic naturality imbues the deeply engaging and utterly compelling work with a hint of earthiness, of being firmly rooted: past fleeting moments of here and now. A timelessness strangely at odds with the improvised nature of proceedings and magically merging in addition to that at the very same moment."
Van Magazine awarded Inhale/Exhale one of the best albums of 2022 "In subsequent re-listens of “Inhale/Exhale,” I keep finding new things to discover and latch onto, to the point where I’ve begun to question whether or not it’s actually the same album I first listened to over the summer, or whether new MP3 files keep getting uploaded to replace the old ones. “
In live performance, the group forms a singular identity that is mesmerizing and hypnotizing to witness.