Holland Andrews: Seraph (Muthertongue)
Saturday, September 19th, 2020 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence Holland Andrews presents Seraph (Muthertongue), a new vocal and electronic performance streamed from ISSUE’s 22 Boerum theater. With emotionality at the core of their compositional style, Andrews is known for expansive works which combine voice and instrumental performance, weaving between the haunting and ethereal, to cathartic discord.
Seraph (Muthertongue) examines the natural undercurrent of “limitless peace that exists deep within the human subconscious as memory.” Andrews expresses a wordless, melodic language of coos, long tones, and vibrato manipulation woven within a tapestry of electronic swells to convey feelings of “returning to a place of safety after wandering in a sea of forgetting what safety was.” Andrews describes, “the piece encompasses a feeling of being loved by a guardian that is ours to access at any time; we stop and remember that we can, offering compassion for the amnesia that this is also real. Seraph (Muthertongue) holds within it the reminder that in the same way our body holds the memory of suffering, it also holds its more expansive counterpart: rest.”
Holland Andrews is an American vocalist, composer, improviser, and performance artist whose work is based on emotionality in its many forms. In their work, Andrews focuses on the abstraction of operatic and extended-technique voice to build soundscapes encompassing both catharsis and the interplay between dissonance and resonance to tell stories of the interior worlds of humanity. Frequently highlighting themes surrounding vulnerability and healing, Andrews arranges music with voice and clarinet, harnessing the innate qualities of these instruments’ power and elegance to serve as a vessel for these themes. As a vocalist, their influences stem from a dynamic range of musical stylings including contemporary opera, free jazz, musical theater, as well as ambient, drone, and noise music. In addition to creating solo work, Andrews develops and performs the soundscapes for dance, theater, and film, and whose work is still toured nationally and internationally. Andrews has gained recognition from publications such as The New York Times, Uncut Magazine, Electronic Sound, NPR, and more. Holland Andrews is currently based in New York City. Andrews also performs solo music under the stage name Like a Villain, including a performance at ISSUE alongside Tyondai Braxton in 2017.
