EMILY RACH BEISEL: Everything Is Noise Premieres Spellbinding Animated Video From Chicago Experimental Woodwind Composer; Sumptuous Branching LP Out Now On Amalgam + Tour Underway

photo by Peter Gannushkin

“Like the best science fiction authors, BEISEL presents a different world that forces our perspectives on our own world to change, and that is a rare gift in music.” – Everything Is Noise

An astonishing animated video for “We Who Behold The Bright Surface,” by Chicago-based experimental woodwind soloist/composer EMILY RACH BEISEL, is now premiering exclusively through Everything Is Noise. “We Who Behold The Bright Surface” is found on BEISEL’s second LP Sumptuous Branching, which was released earlier this month through the exploratory label Amalgam.

EMILY RACH BEISEL is an improviser, composer, educator, curator, and woodwind specialist. Known for visceral performances, blending extended vocal and instrumental techniques with analogue electronics, their music centers on the bass clarinet and incorporates voice, electronics, extended techniques, and other wind instruments creating a complex and nuanced soundscape in which the origins of sounds are often obscured. She holds a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University, is a member of the American Federation of Musicians Local 10-208, and is honored to be a 2024 3Arts Awardee in Music.

The movements captured on Sumptuous Branching were inspired by the likes of Emily Wilson’s new translation of Homer’s The Iliad, Guillaume de Machaut’s La Messe de Nostre Dame – the first complete, unified setting of the Mass – and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House Of Leaves.

Sumptuous Branching sees EMILY RACH BEISEL performing all music, with bass clarinet, vocals, piccolo, and electronics coalescing in a singular, intriguing, somewhat theatrical flow. The album was recorded at Marmalade in Chicago by Bill Harris, mixed by Harris and BEISEL, mastered by Edward Hamel, and completed with artwork by mrfox.img and design by Harris and BEISEL.

The spellbinding video for “We Who Behold The Bright Surface” was directed and animated by Alexander Dupuis. BEISEL reveals, “‘We Who Behold The Bright Surface plays with the brutality of repetition against a backdrop of constant, unfolding change, drawing on the wonder of closely observing variation within what might first appear monotonous. In discussing the video, Alexander and I returned to the idea of the labyrinth: an endlessly shifting series of rooms and corridors. He brings together the myth of the Minotaur and Theseus with the strange intelligence of maze-solving fungi and their branching mycelial networks.”

Everything Is Noise writes with their premiere of the intense video, “The music itself offers no answers, merely more questions. Through the low, digital bellows and unexpected detours and stops, ‘We Who Behold The Bright Surface’ is a labyrinth in and of itself. In ways, Beisel’s performance here echoes the early industrial and sound collage spaces of Throbbing Gristle or Coil, but with Sunn O)))’s worship of sound and volume. The piece is unsettling, as is Alexander Dupuis’s animation, at once recognizable and distorted beyond comfort. Like the best science fiction authors, Beisel presents a different world that forces our perspectives on our own world to change, and that is a rare gift in music.”

Watch EMILY RACH BEISEL’s “We Who Behold The Bright Surface” video first at Everything Is Noise RIGHT HERE.

Sumptuous Branching is available on LP and digital platforms through Amalgam via Bandcamp HERE and the label webshop HERE.  Also see the performance videos for “Cantilevers” HERE and “Her Still Singing Limbs” HERE.

EMILY RACH BEISEL launched her Midwest tour supporting the record in tandem with its release two weeks ago, with bursts of dates running through May 11th. See the confirmed dates below and expect additional live updates over the weeks ahead.

EMILY RACH BEISEL Sumptuous Branching Midwest Release Tour 2026 [remaining dates]:
4/26/2026 Woodland Pattern – Milwaukee, WI
4/29/2026 Ziggy’s – Ypsilanti, MI
4/30/2026 Tranzac – Toronto, ON w/ Patrick O’Reilly
5/01/2026 Zula Presents – Hamilton, ON
5/02/2026 Sellers & Newel – Toronto, ON
5/03/2026 Hallwalls – Buffalo, NY
5/04/2026 Trinosophes – Detroit, MI
5//07/2026 Rozz Tox – Rock Island, IL
5/08/2026 PS1 – Iowa City, IA
5/09/2026 Carnegie Art Center – Mankato, MN
5/10/2026 The Pattern Room – Minneapolis, MN w/ Liz Draper
5/11/2026 University of Minnesota – Minneapolis, MN
5/12/2026 Art Lit Lab – Madison, WI

photo by Ricardo Adame

https://www.emilybeisel.com
https://emilyrachbeisel.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/beisel_m_
https://www.amalgamusic.org
https://www.instagram.com/amalgam_chicago
https://www.facebook.com/amalgamusic

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