Trevor Dunn & Shelley Burgon - Brooklyn 2005

You may notice that this CD does not have a title but in fact it is metaphysically titled "How Far Is Far?" But you don't really need to know that. What you do need to know is that this is a self-produced improv recording and I'm really proud of it.
Fifteen completely acoustic tracks.
---Trevor Dunn

This unique, totally acoustic duo of bass and harp have been a part of the downtown music scene in Euphonic Productions presents: Trevor Dunn & Shelley Burgon plus special guests Lie & SwellNew York City since 2001, playing venues such as Tonic, Barbes, The Issue Project Room andThe Brooklyn Conservatory. Their repertoire consists of both strictly notated compositions as well as purely improvised music---a repertoire that walks the line between chamber music and extended technique. Utilizing instruments that are typically buried by thick orchestration, Burgon and Dunn make the most of their distinct setting by exploring subtle and sometimes barely audible properties of sound. Their dynamic range is as vast as their sonic palette. Between haunting, minor melodies one may hear bass strings played with mallets and harp strings pummeled with a metal rod.

"Wavering between patient meditation and maniacal catharsis Dunn and Burgon mine the narrow fissure between pure improvisation and through-composed chamber music, slashing at the extreme interplay between steel, string and wood. Strings are beaten or jimmied with clothespins, the harp alternately caressed and throttled. The sonic equivalent of a Joseph Cornell box, the duo has a haunting, cinematic quality that is both staggeringly complex and achingly beautiful."
- Tim Duroche, Willamette Week, Portland, OR

Shelley Burgon - pedal harp: Originally from San Francisco Shelley relocated to New York in 2002. Since her move Shelley has performed with John Zorn (Music for films by Joseph Cornell),a quartet with Chris Speed, Ikue Mori and Skuli Sverrisson, Tin Hat Trio, Marina Rosenfeld and Raz Mesanai. In November 2003 she was a part of the Ravished Limbs Improvised Music Festival where she shared the stage with Jim Black and Okkyung Lee.

Shelley has recorded and performed with the following projects; Eyvind Kang's early music project of Atalanta Fugiens by Michael Maier, a quintet interpreting the American Jazz Songbook with saxophonist Jackson Moore and trumpeter Nate Wooley, and in a large ensemble of downtown New York musicians led by drummer Kenny Wolleson with music by various living composers and conduction by Butch Morris.

Trevor Dunn - contrabass: Trevor Dunn known for his involvement in avant-rock bands Mr. Bungle and Fantomas, has recently been playing with John Zorn's Electric Masada, David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness, Susie Ibarra, Marc Ribot and Jenny Scheinman. He can be heard on over forty recordings including his own Trio-Convulsant whose new CD "Sister Phanom Owl Fish" was released on Ipecac Recordings in July, 2004.

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