If the idea of a post-genre world is one that is now widely embraced by modern music makers, some artists, Cellista certainly being one of them, have gone much further, even bluring the lines between the various artistic disciplines themselves. And if the recent Transfigurations album painted this idea across a wide canvass, current single, You Can’t Go Home Again, drills down deep in one spot. It is a song built out of spoken word and strange avant-garde, soundscaping, it is a video built out of intimacy and dance. It is only not representative of her work because her work is so broadly spread, so unique, so multi-discipline, so unaccepting of boundaries and rules that no one track, no one performance, no one album can ever be seen as being totally representative.
But it is compelling, reminiscent of those recordings of Kerouac reading selected passages of his most iconic work over improv jazz, beautiful in its strangeness and strange in its beauty, a patchwork quilt of music and movement, vision and voice. And as expected her music is more than just making songs, Transfigurations, from which this track comes, is about larger concepts and about the merging of various worlds and her live performances push art boundaries in all directions. The album also comes with a book of essays which further explores the idea of moments of transfiguration which lie at the heart of her narratives.
Her lives shows are a must for those lucky enough to be close to her current West Coast tour schedule, her album is essential for those elsewhere and her whole way of looking at the world, at art, at community, at humanity and more are a revelation that is already sending shockwaves, no matter how small for now, around the globe.
Sept 20 Seattle, WA – Wayward Music Series
(with The Zero Collective, noisepoetnobody)
Sept 22 Portland, OR – a steep & thorny way to heaven
(with Operafication, The Zero Collective)
Sept 24 Los Angeles, CA – Coaxial (Noise Soirée)
(with The Zero Collective, Crank Sturgeon, Anna Homler)
Sept 27 Denver, CO – Mercury Cafe (with Sean Renner)
Oct. 06 Sacramento, CA – NorCal Noise (Part of Norcal Noisefest)
Oct. 18 Los Angeles, CA – Art Share (with Sean Renner)
Oct. 25 Oakland, CA – Temescal Arts Center (with Mia Pixley)
