Madison Greenstone is a clarinetist, composer, improviser and member of TAK Ensemble. Their “captivating” (The Wire) solo instrumental practice draws on a deep study of the polyphonic qualities of the clarinet, a traditionally monophonic instrument, and explores sonorities that sound outside of themselves, with highly spatial, sculptural, and disorienting qualities. They embrace difference tones, psychoacoustic phenomena, and all the unruly irreducibilities within the clarinet to create an acoustic identity that fractures its own singularity. With sustained circular breathing, they link a mysticism of repetition with the inherent variance latent therein. Recently their work integrating electronics explores dreamlike acoustic mirages, spatial interferences of difference tones and beating, and draws inspiration from fiction writer Yoko Tawada's proposition that there is no such thing as a room with a fixed size.
Their debut solo album, Resonance Studies in Ecstatic Consciousness (Relative Pitch Records 2023), was included in Bandcamp’s Best Experimental Music of 2023 compilation, and has been described as “one hell of a calling card” (The Wire) and “mind-blowing” (Nowhere Street). Madison can be heard on labels such as Wandelweiser Editions, Another Timbre, TAK Editions, Pleasure of the Text Records, New Focus Recordings, Impakt Collective, Greyfade, Important Records, Mengi, and Longform Editions. They have upcoming releases on I SHALL SING UNTIL MY LAND IS FREE (Ukraine/Berlin).
Madison’s work has been presented by Blank Forms, Lampo, ISSUE Project Room, Cafe Oto, KM28, and Morphine Raum, Oscillation Festival (BE), and elementi (IT). Madison’s writing on experimental music and sound practices has been published through LAMPO imprint, Museum of Art and History Neuchâtel (on the work of Sivan Eldar), Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb / k-verlag (on the work of Jan St. Werner), and Blank Forms. For Blank Forms’ final anthology installment on the work of Éliane Radigue, they translated the remaining documents of Radigue’s archive for English readers to encounter for the first time. They wrote extensively about Radigue’s feedback works (and work with feedback), and co-authored with Charles Curtis an essay exploring the role of recording in her instrumental work.
Madison performs as a member of TAK Ensemble (NYC), and as a collaborator with John McCowen (MUNDANAS), Laura Cocks, Jan St. Werner, and aulete Lukas de Clerck. They sustain a cross-disciplinary dialogue and creative exchange with the Kyiv-based visual artist Anton Saienko.
photo credit: Weston Olencki