Talea Ensemble & Harlem Chamber Players - Julius Eastman: Femenine

Femenine stages Eastman's shaping and building of the black queer masculine form - caught not necessarily between two poles of gender, but with his work constantly driving his own self-making. He was an inventor and sculptor, reminiscent of Jean Tinguely and Harry Bertoia. Clanging, noisy, joyful, and playful in turn, the sound sculpture emerges from these primary elements, moulding and pressing, jiggering and jolleying, through a linear flow of sound and insistent chordal punctuations. The continuous hum of the prime motive as a bed of sound against the softness of the texture and the fierceness of the accented major triads takes flight into a dreamscape, making possible new ways of listening, knowing, and being. (Ellie M. Hisama & Isaac Jean-François)