On Wednesday, September 15th, The ExPosed Blues Duo, featuring vocalist Fay Victor and guitarist Anders Nilsson, will celebrate their August 31st debut, BARE (Greene Avenue Music), with a special hometown performance at Barbès in Brooklyn. Best known for their work together in Ms. Victor's acclaimed quartet, the Fay Victor Ensemble, these frequent collaborators have used this increasingly vital side project to showcase their distinctive, stripped-down approach to spirituals, jazz standards and early 20th century blues music.
“It's a nice cross-section of American music rooted in the blues," Ms. Victor explains, “and we feel these selections, and our approaches to each of them, are a strong illustration of what is honest and true about that idiom. We set out to show that a blues-based project doesn't need to sound derivative. I'm a jazz singer and Anders is a metal guitarist and free improviser, yet the blues deeply inform both of our approaches to music. He's not laying down any carpets for me to glide over and I'm not trying to turn him into a rhythm machine. Just like in the Fay Victor Ensemble, we aim to create a dialogue as equal musicians and performers."
“Nilsson plucks spidery figures and dissonant clusters that loom like an overcast sky," writes Time Out Chicago's Arief Sless-Kitain, “fading to reveal Victor's cunning artistic vision." The pair has worked together as The ExPosed Blues Duo since 2007, when they played their first concert at an experimental music festival in Marseille, France. They have since performed regularly around New York, and collaborated with such special guests as Tim Daisy, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Tomas Ulrich. BARE is their third recording together following The Fay Victor Ensemble's two releases, Cartwheels Through The Cosmos (ArtistShare, 2007) and The FreeSong Suite (Greene Avenue Music, 2009).
“It's a nice cross-section of American music rooted in the blues," Ms. Victor explains, “and we feel these selections, and our approaches to each of them, are a strong illustration of what is honest and true about that idiom. We set out to show that a blues-based project doesn't need to sound derivative. I'm a jazz singer and Anders is a metal guitarist and free improviser, yet the blues deeply inform both of our approaches to music. He's not laying down any carpets for me to glide over and I'm not trying to turn him into a rhythm machine. Just like in the Fay Victor Ensemble, we aim to create a dialogue as equal musicians and performers."
“Nilsson plucks spidery figures and dissonant clusters that loom like an overcast sky," writes Time Out Chicago's Arief Sless-Kitain, “fading to reveal Victor's cunning artistic vision." The pair has worked together as The ExPosed Blues Duo since 2007, when they played their first concert at an experimental music festival in Marseille, France. They have since performed regularly around New York, and collaborated with such special guests as Tim Daisy, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Tomas Ulrich. BARE is their third recording together following The Fay Victor Ensemble's two releases, Cartwheels Through The Cosmos (ArtistShare, 2007) and The FreeSong Suite (Greene Avenue Music, 2009).
