New album, “Parallax”, out on October 23rd!
MADAM ORANGE is the entity uniting Chicago-based avant musicians/solo artists Emily Rach Beisel (bass clarinet, electronics) and Bill Harris (drums, electronics), who will unveil their eccentric solo album, Parallax, through Amalgam on October 23rd.
Both formidable solo artists, Beisel and Harris combine their respective sonic worlds into MADAM ORANGE, a project that often sounds like far more than two people playing, pushing toward the outer limits of heavy improvisation, rhythmic interlock, amplification, and feedback. Their music moves fluidly between dense, aggressive intensity and spacious, highly sensitive textures, driven by a near-telepathic musical connection and a shared interest in extending acoustic instruments through electronics. Having toured throughout the Midwest, East Coast, and Canada, including Midwest tours in 2024 and East Coast and Canadian tours in 2023, the duo is now on the verge of delivering their recorded debut, Parallax.
Through eleven unhinged but focused movements combining free-range and non-compliant techniques, MADAM ORANGE’s Parallax is the candid rock purist’s worst nightmare yet offers the adventurous spelunkers of the musical world’s most exterior realms a vast expanse of uncharted chasms and corridors in which to venture, and perhaps not return. Theatrical and ethereal woodwind tactics delivered via subtly employed electronic manipulations and vast outboard effects, lightly-grinding/unconventional percussive and rhythmic flow, and an overall sense of auditor boundary-testing coalesce and writhe like an alien ecosystem living in the cracks of reality.
Recorded by Bill Harris, who also operates the Amalgam label. Emily Rach Beisel and Bill Harris created the album’s cover art and mixed the audio which was then mastered by Edward Hamel. MADAME ORANGE’s output should capture your attention if Nurse With Wound, Zu, Alice Coltrane, Boredoms, John Zorn, Secret Chiefs Three, Ruins, Peter Brötzmann, Muslimgauze, Skullflower, and Ornette Coleman permeate your listening habits.
Emily Rach Beisel is a Chicago-based improviser, composer, educator, curator and woodwind specialist. Beisel is known for visceral performances blending extended vocal and instrumental techniques with analogue electronics. Their works is described by A Jazz Noise as, “…heavy stuff, sounds retrieved from the deeper places… Beisel pokes around in the sonic depths and brings leviathans out to play.” As a curator, Beisel seeks to increase the visibility and involvement of femme, trans, and nonbinary artists in the creative performance community. They founded the Pleiades Series at Elastic Arts, presenting monthly performances, community-based free improvisation sessions and a biennial PleiadesFest. Beisel holds a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University, is a member of the American Federation of Musicians Local 10-208 and is honored to be a 2024 3Arts Awardee in Music.
Bill Harris is a percussionist, improviser, and audio engineer in Chicago. He also operates and produces for Amalgam, a Chicago-based label and collective, and co-operates Chicago recording studio and performance space, Marmalade. He’s a prominent Chicago-based percussionist, improviser, audio engineer, and curator working in areas of improvisation, jazz, noise, rock, and bluegrass. Presented both nationally and internationally, Harris’s work focuses on a number of dedicated groups, ad hoc groups, and solo work, with over three decades of studying, practicing, and creating music.
Additionally, Harris focuses on solo work incorporating acoustic and electronic material, using feedback and timbral manipulation. He has recorded four solo records, and in 2015 he started Amalgam, a 100% artist-run collective and label dedicated to showcasing works of improvised and experimental music in Chicago and elsewhere, with a bi-monthly series at Cafe Mustache. Amalgam has been widely recognized in publications such as The Wire and has been a vital tool and resource for promoting both emerging and established artists from Chicago and elsewhere, drawing from and representing the hugely diverse and collaborative music scene of Chicago. Harris is also an audio engineer working in both studio and live contexts, and operates an independent studio in Chicago with engineering, mixing, mastering, and production credits on labels such as Astral Spirits, Aerophonic Records, Clean Feed, Trost, No Index, 577 Records, and Ears&Eyes.
(Photograph by Ricardo Adame)
