Sarah Alexander, Damon Smith

*2023 stock* "There are some people who are very singular in their conception of improvisation. People whose music embodies them as much as they embody the music. People who take from their life experience and put it into their sonic practice. People who search every crevice of their instrument to find sonic potential. These practices are beyond what may or may not be learned at a conservatory, no matter how deep the teaching goes.

Listening to these improvised moments between Sarah Ruth Alexander and Damon Smith, I might as well be eavesdropping on a conversation. I know both of these people very well. As such, I know their joys, their humor, their whimsy, their passions. I know their difficulties, their aversions, their particularities. All of these aspects are audible to me as a person who has been both a friend and musical collaborator.

Sarah and Damon both come from rather different playing backgrounds. Damon is known to the world almost purely as an improviser. Notwithstanding a few such things as Ayler tunes or Fluxus-tangential scores, both of which serve as springboards or orientation points for more improvisation yet still, Damon has devoted his life and art to discovering, in real time and practice, instant composition, both solo and with other musicians from all over the world. His other passions, from poetry, to modern art, to (perhaps most infamously) world cuisine all reflect his uncompromising and ever-searching aesthetics and praxis.

Surrender your ears and your minds. Dig deep. " - Aaron Gonzalez