ISSUE Project Room : an open and versatile environment in which established and emerging artists conduct, exhibit and perform new and site-specific work

Violist Jessica Pavone and guitarist Mary Halvorson have established a much-deserved, highly welcome presence in the NYC jazz and improv world, playing regularly in the company of such luminaries as Anthony Braxton, John Zorn and Elliot Sharp. However, their ongoing recording and performing project together carves out a unique and fascinating niche unassignable to any scene, exploring intersections of timeless folk, elegant chamber composition, and fierce improvisation. The two women have been so kind as to share a few live recordings from their wonderful performance at ISSUE last year – two from their most recent album Thin Air and one from 2007’s On and Off.

As a duo, Pavone and Halvorson create beautiful songs out of an endless series of naturally-evoked tensions between extremes on a spectrum where the middle-ground has been removed. Nonetheless, movement back and forth between the two poles occurs freely and convincingly. Traditional song forms disintegrate without warning into unruly improv before being reconstituted with equal unexpectation. Gingerly-picked arpeggios and hauntingly-simple string melodies give way to the violent screeching of Pavone viciously sawing through her viola strings amidst a flurry of sparks as Halvorson grinds up jagged blocks of discomfiture amidst car-backfiring distortion. Loose vocal unisons drift apart into subtly-dissonant, distantly-disconcerting harmonies as the child-like innocence in the tone of the women’s voices belie often dark, unsettling lyrics. Together, they create an intimate space cohabited with equal parts rough fragility and vulnerable ferocity.

For more listening, check out their great set live from WFMU on Bethany's show here.