Stir

Description

Barely after his last solo album, Fountain Fire, was released, Bill MacKay returns to the harmonic separation of atoms with his guitar's six strings in this new collaboration with cellist Katinka Kleijn, Stir. Bill is a passionate collaborator, and over the past seven years, he and Katinka have used live performances to elevate their chemistry to a surprisingly organic density, with striking colors inspired by avant-rock, folk, classical jazz, and experimental music. It’s both an unlikely and perfect pairing as both musicians are known not only for their talent but also for their creativity, curiosity, and range of genres. Together, they form a fluid, intuitive, dialogic, and improvisation-ready duo. Stir centers on a series of MacKay’s compositions, partly inspired by Hermann Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf. The repetition and expansion of themes borrow from the world of chamber music, while the distortions, free playing, and sharp edge of much of the work clearly draw from the duo’s friends in noise and the avant-garde. If Jimi Hendrix, Henry Flynt, John Cage, PJ Harvey, Duke Ellington, Eric Satie, or Body/Head come to mind while listening to the record, you're not wrong! Bill MacKay is a guitarist, singer-songwriter who has been nurturing the experimental rock, avant, and folk scene for over a decade. He grew up in Pittsburgh and has lived in Chicago since 1998. Katinka Kleijn is a cellist and veteran of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and the International Contemporary Ensemble. She is originally from the Netherlands and has lived in Chicago since 1995. Stir is their first full-length album together, and all music on it is arranged by MacKay and Kleijn.