Joanna Mattrey - Dirge

With Dirge Joanna Mattrey creates pieces and improvisations that evoke the sound of a half-burned, long forgotten fiddle record. Using extended techniques, preparations, and electronic alterations, Mattrey crafts noisy melodies that could have been heard at an ancient pagan bonfire. Her approach rides the line between harsh noise and soaring melody, drawing on her classical technical training, and crashing head on into the vibrant NYC noise community. Mattrey extracts fleeting moments of beauty and clarity from frenzied chaos and presents us with glimpses of balance and stillness surrounded on all sides by an overwhelming intensity.

Dirge draws on the pain and beauty of recalling the past to honor those who’ve come before, and to continue the spirit of ritual and ceremony that is at the heart of traditional music. Mattrey uses memory as a compositional tool to create cohesive narrative pieces that connect folk sensibilities to her modern sonic approach.

Following her debut solo viola album Veiled (Relative Pitch Records, 2020), Mattrey brings us more material from her solo work, but this time, for Stroh violin. The Stroh violin is the illicit love-child of the trumpet and the violin. The brassy timbre from the trumpet bell and the resonance from the strings come together with Mattrey’s experimental sensibilities to create a very unusual and energetic soundscape.