Kole Galbraith with Lori Goldston & Noel Kennon
(Seattle, WA)
Q'əssápiˀ kəsˁác'əc' snk'əl'íp'
Access: Extreme high-frequency and high-decibel sounds with a strobe warning during the first 10 minutes of the set that may be disorienting or disturbing for audience members with light or audio sensitivity.
DESCRIPTION
Q'əssápiˀ kəsˁác'əc' snk'əl'íp' is an audio-visual performance composed by Seattle-Based artist Kole Galbraith (Sinixt/Peoria) with visual assistance by artist Sean Waple. The piece is part of a larger studio LP entitled Hurry Up, But Don’t Rush It. In Response to this album, music journalist and theorist Catherine Guesde writes:
How can a song allow us to hear not only the voices of those who sing it, but the land itself? To me, this idea is both puzzling and self-evident. As a non-Indigenous person, I grew up learning that music is made by humans for humans. But why would music— unlike plants and any other being that grows in a given location— not bear the mark of the place that nourished it? [...] With its scattered origins, one could expect the album to be detached from place; after all, musique concrète relies on cutting sound from its source, thereby deterritorializing it. But here, the opposite occurs. Bringing together the electronic and acoustic sounds of humans and non-humans, of minerals and animals, Kole Galbraith weaves together relationships in a way that only anchors us more deeply.
***
Recording is not only a means of preservation in times of upheaval. “Q’əssápiˀ kəsˁác’əc’ snk’əl’íp’” takes us to the edge of worlds, to a place both near and impossible to locate. Rustling sounds, the buzzing of a damaged cassette: the medium’s opacity compels us to listen carefully through the noise. We keep our ears open, trying to get closer to what there is to hear: a rugged soundscape that appears in fragments. As a drone settles in, a space opens up, stretched between sonic events. The stage is set for the appearance of the interior Salish figure who made the earth habitable for humans and whose identity is linked to the spaces it inhabits. With it, the sonic space becomes a liminal space, a place where the spiritual and the material are inextricably intertwined. Listening, then, allows us to travel between worlds to learn how a world is made or how to remake a world. In times of destruction, cosmogony undoubtedly has a path to show us.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kole Galbraith (Sinixt/Peoria) is a multi-disciplinary artist who focuses on sound, audio-visual, and found-object installation. Based in Seattle, WA, Kole Galbraith has been active in the underground experimental music community for the past decade, performing throughout the US and Europe. Sonically, the sonic studio compositions are informed by early 20th-century French musique-concrète, harsh-noise, black metal, free jazz, and contemporary composition. Thematically, the compositions are influenced by interior Salish folklore and contemporary indigenous experience. Galbraith mixes materials found in nature with electronic techniques to uncover both latent sonic capabilities and latent histories. Galbraith has released albums on his own label, Obscure & Terrible, as well as on SIGE, Titania Tapes, and Krim Kram. Galbraith has worked with musicians including Lori Goldston, Greg Kelley, Jessika Kenney, Jason Lazer, Steve Moore, Catherine Guesde, Warren Realrider (Pawnee/Crow), Nathan Young (Delaware), Patrick Wurzwallner, Maja Osojnik, morher, and Noel Kennon.Kole Galbraith is an enrolled member of the Peoria Tribe of Oklahoma and COUSIN indigenous film collective.
Lori Goldston plays written, traditional, and spontaneous work on the cello and works as a composer, teacher, producer, bandleader, and prolific, widely varied collaborator.
Classically trained and rigorously de-trained, self-described as “semi-feral,” her voice as a cellist is singular, deeply textured, and original, investigating thresholds, instability, and connections between far-flung modes of thought. She travels throughout the US and abroad, often working in artist-run spaces with an eye for bridging communities.
Well known for her work touring with Nirvana and contributing to their Unplugged In New York live album, she works prolifically and with composers, film makers, writers, theater directors, choreographers, visual artists, orchestras, and bands including Earth, BBC Scottish Symphony, Black Belt Eagle Scout, Ya Tseen, Judith Hamann, Mirah, David Byrne, Jem Finer, Jessika Kenney, Lonnie Holley, Trimpin, Stuart Dempster, Shelley Hirsch, Maya Dunietz, Michael Hurley, Chris Cochrane, Laura Cannell, Ilan Volkov, Charles Hayward, Jem Finer, Embryo, Josephine Foster, Mik Quantius, Jooklo, Ghedalia Tezartes, Senga Nengudi, Ellen Fullman, Lynn Shelton, Terry Riley, and many, many others. She’s composed and performed live scores with dozens of experimental and early silent films throughout the US, Europe, Australia, and Mexico.
Her solo and collaborative work has been released by Mississippi Records, Nyahh, Relative Pitch, Eiderdown, Yo Yo, K Records, Sub Rosa, Second Editions, Sub Pop, PIAPTK, Full Spectrum, Marginal Frequency, and Broken Clover, among others; in 2026, she will release an album on ESP-Disk.
Noel Kennon is a violist based in Seattle, WA. Kennon focuses on soundings involving resonance, texture, just intonation, and experimental improvisation.
SUPPORT
COUSIN Collective and Obscure & Terrible Label