"…Is In the Air" is Jessica Pavone's sixth solo viola album and her fifth for Relative Pitch Records. Over the past twenty years, Pavone has developed solo music based on the pitches of the viola's open strings to activate the instrument's natural sympathetic resonances. She also consistently experiments with incorporating electronic effects to create a ‘partner’ with which to play, adding more texture to her compositions. While Pavone was making the music for "…Is In the Air" during the summer of 2025, she found herself ruminating on how intangible things can be profoundly real. Stagnation hung over that period; it felt like something was "in the air" but no word seemed to fully capture the feeling. So much like the sentiment, that part of the title remains blank.

With each solo album, Pavone aims to try something new. On her 2024 solo release, "What Happens Has Become Now," she performed on one of Ken Butler’s hybrid violas, and in 2022, she created a vocal collage based on one of her dream diaries for "When No One Around You is There but Nowhere to be Found."

Expanding the idea of having a ‘partner’ to play with in a ‘solo’ setting, this new album features guest appearances from guitarist Fred Frith and bass guitarist Joe Lally. Pavone wanted to explore collaboration with artists not exclusively based on proximity. Frith and Lally reside in different cities from Pavone; she'd been sharing musical ideas and scores, and sending sound files back and forth with each independently of the other. The results are “Step, Line, Trade” and “And At Last,” the final two tracks on the album, which bring two distinctly different long-distance collaborations into fruition.

Jessica Pavone - composition, viola, effects (on track 3).

Recorded by Beau Gordon at Tidbit Sonos in Philadelphia, PA, on November 22, 2025.

Fred Frith - guitars on track 3. Recorded by Fred Frith at Casa Pancio in California, December 2025.

Joe Lally - bass guitar on track 4. Recorded by Brendan Canty at These Electric Things in Washington, DC, on December 10, 2025.

Mixed by Beau Gordon. Mastered by Weasel Walter.

Cover design, Spl@T!.