Dallas, 7.24.2026

Hadn't done one of these in a minute. Decided to take an evening off from doing political stuff to take in a show in Dallas, where two of my very favorite improvisers were performing in collaboration with some folks I knew not from Adam (or so I thought), under the aegis of Ernesto Montiel's Porous Sonorous -- a trademark of quality around mi casa -- and New Media Contemporary, the artist-run multimedia gallery of Fort Worth cat James Talambas, whom I last saw when he was running sound for No Kings 3 and I was running around in an orange vest. 

Opening the show was an exciting newcomer, a young Dentonite who goes by the handle xmyri. Seated at a table behind a laptop and a wire nest of electronic gear, xmyri cued samples of musical fragments, sometimes interrupted by silence, using faders while projecting images that looked like melting glacial ice on New Media Contemporary's large screen -- a feature (along with the streaming video installations around the room) that make the venue particularly well suited to this type of presentation. 

In conversation later, the artist allowed that normally, their visuals are interactive, but they had opted to go with fixed patterns to avoid crashing their laptop. (I suggested that sometimes it's beneficial to have a constraint or two built into an improvisation.) While new to performance, xmyri is already demonstrating a strong command of their tools, and an ability to combine sonic surprise and visual atmospherics in compelling ways. Someone alert the Dallas Ambient Music Nights folks.

Next up was the first time duo of virtuoso cellist Kourtney Newton, whose performances of composed music (with Sounds Modern at the Museum of Modern Art Fort Worth) and non-idiomatic improvisation (on the Denton experimental scene) are always thrilling, and multimedia artist Sean Miller, who also performs with his spouse, chanteuse extraordinaire Lily Taylor, under the rubric Locations. Newton admitted that she came to the gig with the expectation of performing solo music with visual accompaniment, and was relieved to have another musician to play off. 

Since the last time I saw her perform, she's added looper and Whammy pedals to her stage rig, along with her cello and musical saw. In electroacoustic situations like this, I always worry about the volume differential between electronic and acoustic instruments, and while Miller's shifting soundscape of acoustical textures (with visual accompaniment that looked like flowing mercury) occupied a big chunk of midrange space, Newton was able to make herself heard. She has a vast array of techniques at her disposal -- false harmonics, glisses, percussive and grinding effects with bow and beater on strings, tapping on the body of the cello, and more -- that she augmented with the pedals to create repeating backgrounds and push through the electronic wall, even managing to interject a brief melodic theme. Most striking of all were the sounds she produced with the musical saw, creating crazy glisses and otherworldly vibrato that cut through even more dramatically than the amplified cello.

Beam Splitter, the Berlin based duo of vocalist Audrey Chen and trombonist Henrik Munkeby Norstebo, were joined by Oak Cliff's own Stefan Gonzalez (just back from a quick mini-tour of Europe with The Young Mothers and preparing to relocate to Chicago in November) on vibraphone for a powerful set that raised the intensity stakes for the evening dramatically. Chen and Norstebo perform a highly empathetic form of improvisation, in which the sounds of their breath, channeled through the filters of his instrument and her formidable vocal technique, are treated electronically (controlled by Norstebo, who manipulates knobs while he plays), resulting in something like organic jazz metal. Her percussive plosives, idiosyncratic scatting, and vocal fry extended beyond imagination were almost superhuman. Dancing behind his vibes with manic intensity, Gonzalez listened intently and played off of Chen's vocalese both rhythmically and melodically until the set reached a satisfying conclusion. The audience of 20-odd folks listened attentively and roared their approbation when it was finished.

Now back to work, but I'll be heading to Denton on August 15 to hear Gregg Prickett's Monks of Saturnalia -- whose debut album is complete and is my most anxiously awaited release of the moment -- will perform at The Pony, a new Denton spot run by muso Dorian Marsh and his fiancee, ceramicist Bella Tylen. On August 22, I'll toddle down the street to the Grackle Art Gallery to hear sopranino saxophone master Danny Kamins in a trio with bassist Marcin Bozek and tenor saxophonist Tomek Gadecki, with Prickett's acoustic Trio du Sang opening. On August 23 there's another cool show which I'm not sure I'm allowed to mention yet, and I hate having to go back and correct these things. Last but not least, Kourtney Newton says that the collaborative new music outfit Amorsima Trio, of which she's a member, might be performing in Tarrant County this October; film, as they say, at 11. All I ever need is something to look forward to. Especially good electoral outcomes on November 3.