SEMI-FREE

EPISODE 6: SEMI-FREE
After decades as a show runner for SNL and creative director for St. Ann’s in Brooklyn, Janine Nichols had worked with everyone from the Rolling Stones to David Bowie, from Richard Thompson to Lou Reed, when she made the decision in the early aughts to cross the proscenium and take the stage herself. She formed the trio Semi-Free with virtuosos Charlie Burnham (violin and more: his own Hidden City, James Blood Ulmer, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Sonny Sharrock, Steven Bernstein, etc.) and Brandon Ross (guitar: his own Harriet Tubman and Blazing Beauty, Don Byron, Butch Morris, musical director for Cassandra Wilson, etc., etc.). In the Space, they perform Janine’s compositions “Twice” and “Drive” and talk to Chris about the ephemeral nature of music, playing the violin under rather than over a guitar, and what Jimmy Durante would have done with the songs of Alan Sherman.

FOR MORE: semi-free

debbie schwartz

little black egg

under_cooled

1 NEG-FI

Meet the inward-facing bookends of the Neo-No Wave, Ryan Walsh and Evelyne Buhler.

2 GREG PETERSON

A song is a song is a song is a Greg Peterson.

3 JENNIFER O'CONNOR

She writes. She writes songs. She writes hooks. She plays guitar. She loops. She juggles (probably). She starts record labels (definitely).

4 TWO MULE TEAM

Sort of like 75 Dollar Bill meets the Shams. No, more like Run On meets Timber. Not really, Vietnam meets V-Effect. Hmm, maybe...

5 P.G. SIX

The harp. The voice. Environmental guitar.

6 SEMI-FREE

Janine Nichols, Charlie Burnham, Brandon Ross: Semi-Free but All-Everything Else. Jazz not what your trio can do for you. Folk springs eternal.

7 DEBBY SCHWARTZ

Modal rocker major-minor harmonizer song singer writer. "Debby Schwartz has hands like Bert Jansch and a voice like the autumn moon."

8 LITTLE BLACK EGG

Georgia Hubley steps out from behind the drums to shape time and space on guitar. “Shifting & swelling electric guitar clouds, faint birds. gorgeous.”- Jesse Jarnow

9 UNDER_COOLED

Robert Dennis, AKA under_cooled, introduces us to his "uglient" sound, asking us to re-hear the mundane in a new light.