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Charlotte Greve | Sediments We Move German-born, Brooklyn based composer Charlotte Greve to release ambitious debut solo album Sediments We Move on October 15th via New Amsterdam & figureight records On October 15, 2021, New Amsterdam (Bryce Dessner, Deerhoof, Olga Bell) and Shahzad Ismaily's figureight records (Randall Dunn, Bernice, JFDR) will release Sediments We Move, the new seven-part album from German-born, Brooklyn-based composer, singer, and saxophonist Charlotte Greve. The winner of two ECHO Jazz Prizes (the German equivalent of a GRAMMY), Greve has been hailed the “Best of Bandcamp” for her nebulous sound—one that flows freely between choral music, rock, noise, free jazz, metal, ambient, and bombastic 80s-inspired pop. On Sediments We Move, her debut album under her own name, Greve, backed by her band, Wood River, and Berlin choir Cantus Domus, invites listeners into a world where disparate sounds weave together like twine, melding into one beautiful, cohesive flow. Though Greve is a graduate of Jazz Institute Berlin and New York University Steinhardt, the composer frequently abandoned academic form during the creative process. Waves of inspiration overcame Greve, who then recorded her ideas on a whim—singing and talking and clapping into her phone. “I would describe this work as an image of myself, turned inside out, completely vulnerable and bare, out in the open, ” says Charlotte Greve. “All my influences are here, interwoven together unapologetically. This is a genre-fluid piece. Listeners are invited to open their ears, to hear assorted sounds uniting, to conceive Sediments We Move as one.” Today she shares 'Part V', an expansive collage of indie-rock, jazz and choral singing. The piece begins with Greve's band, Wood River. "The whole beginning [of the piece] is more written like a song. Where it's just about groove, guitar power chords and drum fills". Ever the experimentor, Greve is always ready to embrace happy accidents. The vocal line, originally intended to be one repeated note ended up, due to a typo in the score, becoming a much more interesting sound to behold, dropping down half a step every once in a while."I also wanted the same musical element to appear in different moments and functions, as if it was being passed from one ensemble to the other, " she explains. "The main line is being picked up by the choir in unison, then by the saxophone and later by the choir again but divided up among the different voice groups - all inspired by the image of passing down elements through generations.” Sediments We Move is imbued with this theme of connectivity. “This album has many different moments and phases, kind of like our lives, ” says Greve. “We all go through different moments, different phases, though we don’t always see their interconnectedness.” After speaking with her grandmother, Greve began to clearly see the similarities between her relatives – habits and influences, traits and oddities passed through time. Fittingly, then, Greve’s older brother, Julius Greve, wrote lyrics for Sediments We Move, blending familial ties with imagery of nature, expanding the circle beyond the Greve family – one layer fading into the next, until all is one. “I felt an urgency to compose a large-scale piece, ” says Greve. “I had never written for choir before, or ever since, and it was a lot of trial and error. But the sound of many voices coalescing with a beat-driven band was extremely appealing.” In addition to her two ECHO Jazz prizes, Greve has won both the Jazz Baltica Award and a Praetorius-Musikpreis. For over a decade, the composer has toured across Europe, South Asia, and the United States, playing festivals from Jazz Baltica to Jazzfest Berlin to Haldern Pop to Jazzfest Kolkata, collaborating with New Amsterdam artist Arooj Aftab, dancer Isabel Umali, drummer Vinnie Sperrazza, pianist Marta Sanchez, and songwriter Grey McMurray. Like plunging a bottle into the ocean, then swirling the sand and silt and water together, Sediments We Move mixes Charlotte Greve’s myriad influences—both as a composer and a human. |
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