ulfTone » artists » Susan Alcorn

Susan Alcorn
UMA

Susan Alcorn, is a Houston-based composer and musician who has received international recognition as an innovator of the pedal steel guitar, an instrument whose sound is commonly associated with country and western music. Alcorn has absorbed the technique of C&W pedal steel playing and refined it to a virtuosic level. Her original music reveals the influence of free jazz, avant-garde classical music, Indian ragas, and other music of the world. The Manchester Guardian describes her music as “beautiful, glassy and liquid, however far she strays from pulse and conventional harmony.”

Recent performances include a tour of the UK highlighted by a critically acclaimed concert at the London Musicians Collective's Festival of Experimental Music, a performance at the Birmingham (AL) Imrov Festival, improvisational collaborations with composer Pauline Oliveros and bassist Peter Kowald, and a concert and recording with avant-garde guitarist Eugene Chadbourne. Her recent CD release Uma is on ulfTone music.


What the press says:

„Alcorn’s playing and technique here and elswhere is amongst the best I’ve ever heard but more importantly this is instrumental music that you can actually feel moving in a never-anding loop between your mind and your heart.“
The Broken Ear, Malmö, Schweden

„Alcorn is a great player who has mastered and redefined an unlikely instrument (I noticed UK exponents BJ Cole and Mike Cooper in the audience). With an exquisite touch she invoked the history of her instrument, extended it’s emotional and etherial strenghs, and explored it’s microtonal possibilities, drawing in out of contexts that traditionally render it invisibel – or generic – and placing it in it’s own mature discourse. Harry Partch sonorities and the Grand Ole Opry, with impressive shifts from pure abstraction into ricochets and extended stretches of straight Country – reminding improvisers that „free“ includes the right to be romantic, meloic anf four to the bar.“
Chris Cutler in The Wire (UK), 07/01 „LMC’s Tenth Annual Festival of Experimantal Music“

„The idea of Jazz improv played on the pedal-steel is potentially nauseating, but Texan musician and composer Susan Alcorn pulls it off without sounding at all gimmicky. [...] Bypassing the usual corny sweeps associated with Country, Alcorn approaches the pedal-steel more like a convenional slide guitar, attaining a lonesome blues sound not unlike Ry Cooder’s. Her ringing strokes similarly evoke an epic sense of space.“
David Keenan, The Wire (UK) 6/01

„Based in Texas, Susan Alcorn is a pedal-steel player with an articulate but left-field personal style on an instrument normally associated with Country and Western music. [...] In Alcorn’s hands the pedal-steel is beautiful, glassy and liquid, however far she strays from pulse and conventional harmony.“
Manchester Guardian (UK) 03/01


TRACKLISTING:

1. Uma's river song of love (MP3)
2. Dancing
3. Kalimankou Denkou / Thrace
4. Thelonius Monk Medley
5. The royal road
6. Mercedes Sosa
7. The bells of Amden
8. Amazing grace

buy it!

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