Black Spirituals

ISSUE Project Room presents the New York debut of Oakland-based electro-acoustic unit Black Spirituals, in collaboration with new Ridgewood venue The Sump and Poppers Locarno bar on September 22, 2015.

The duo consists of Zachary James Watkins (electronics) and Marshall Trammell (percussion), and borrows the alias Black Spirituals from a found cassette documenting a lecture given by Bernice Reagon on the roots music of American Black Slaves. At the ecstatic intersection of rich harmonic tones and the heart-thumping, acoustic percussion, Black Spirituals transform performance sites with ritualistic communication, and manipulate temporal experience with their non-linear “Multi-Aesthetic Approach to Improvisation.”