Email
Tin Hat, once an instrumental group, has added vocals in its latest album.
Tin Hat, a quartet that began as a trio, has had a reputation as an adventurous ensemble whose original compositions reside somewhere between jazz and chamber music.
The New Yorker described the group this way: “Their haunting and strangely familiar music … is a soundtrack for the kind of puzzling dream that leaves you sitting awake at night.”
That description could apply to Tin Hat’s 2012 album, “the rain is a handsome animal,” a 17-song cycle based on the poems of e.e. cummings.
“The album reverses a trend for Tin Hat as an instrumental group,” said guitarist-Dobro player Mark Orton, one of its founding members.
Orton explained that the reversal is represented by the fact that the full CD features the voice of Carla Kihlstedt for the first time. Kihlstedt is a violinist, though she has been known to sing in concert. She, too, is a founding member.
Clarinetist Ben Goldberg calls the new album “modern art songs with influences of Latin, jazz klezmer and European whatever.”
 |
||
|
Tin Hat WHEN and WHERE: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 6 at GiG Performance Space, 1505 Second St., Santa Fe; and 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 7 at the Outpost Performance Space, 210 Yale SE HOW MUCH: Tickets for the Santa Fe concert are $25 at the door. Tickets for the Albuquerque concert are $30 general public, $25 students and Outpost members in advance at the Outpost, by calling 268-0044 or at the door |
|
|
Tin Hat will perform music from the CD at its Santa Fe concert Wednesday, March 6, and at its Albuquerque concert Thursday, March 7.
Though Orton and Kihlstedt came up with the idea for the album, Goldberg said that each ensemble member wrote a handful of tunes.
The fourth member is Rob Reich, an accordionist and pianist.
“Playing music together requires a lot of spontaneous thought and invention,” Goldberg said in reference to their approach to performance.
He had met the original trio members in 1997 and played with them on their first gig at the Hotel Utah in San Francisco. Goldberg didn’t join Tin Hat until eight years ago. Joining meant that he’s had a chance to also play the contra alto clarinet, which has the role of the bass, in some of its tunes.
Reprint story -- Email the reporter at dsteinberg@abqjournal.com. Call the reporter at 505-823-3925
