American, Reykjavík-based experimental clarinettist and composer John McCowen is obsessed with discovering a polyphonic language on a historically monophonic instrument – the clarinet. This obsession led him to create a unique acoustic vocabulary that is similar to a shifting soundscape of electronic feedback. McCowen’s multiphonic approach is based on drones, difference tones, and beating harmonics as a means to showcase the compositional potential within a single acoustic sound source.
Pressure Chord features McCowen playing contrabass clarinet in a chamber trio of like-minded experimental sonic explorers who composed and performed music outside of equal temperament: American, Berlin-based trombonist Weston Olencki (who also contributed field recordings), whose work
