Bill Horist is a Seattle based guitarist, composer and improviser. In addition to his remarkable solo prepared guitar endeavors and time with Master Musicians of Bukkake, he has collaborated with a wide range of esteemed artists including John Zorn, Secret Chiefs 3, Ruins, Eyvind Kang, Bill Frisell, KK Null, Alan Bishop, Kawabata Makoto, Kinski and many more.
Jakob Riis is a pioneer of the Danish experimental scene and the former trombonist now primarily makes electronic, noise and electro-acoustic music. He uses solo laptop performances to improvise within open structures and has played with people like Philipp Wachsmann, Axel Dörner, Pål Nilssen-Love, Lotte Anker and Mats Gustafsson.
Horist and Riis embarked together on a short tour of the Northwest US in the Summer of 2009.
Although they had known each other for years (having first met at a festival in San Diego and soon after, performed together in a larger ad hoc group in Tijuana, Mexico) they had never before worked together as a duo.
The plan was simple; each would do a solo set and then they would perform as a duo, wherein Jakob would process, manipulate and extrapolate Bill’s prepared guitar work.
It seemed like a good strategy, but neither expected such a synergistic result and ‘The Cessation Elegy’ is the culmination of this brief encounter. It explores broad sonic boundaries, finding footholds in a wide array of sounds - drone, raag-infused acoustic exploration, straight up noise, abstract folk, doom, electro-acoustic excursions and dolorous ambience.
