Clarice Jensen and ACME perform Esthesis

Clarice Jensen celebrates the release of her new album Esthesis on FatCat's 130701 imprint with the first live performance of it, joined by her group ACME (the American Contemporary Music Ensemble). Esthesis is conceptually structured around the emotional and harmonic spectrum and the phenomenon of chromesthesia - a condition whereby sound involuntarily evokes an experience of color, shape and movement. Each track evokes a different principal emotion using one-word titles (Liking, Sadness, Anger, Disliking, Joy, Fear, and Love), juxtaposing the depths of these emotions with the reality-overlay of the solitude of imposed isolation and delayed communication during the pandemic.

Clarice Jensen is a composer and cellist who has developed a distinctive compositional approach, improvising and layering her cello through shifting loops and a chain of electronic effects to open out and explore a series of rich, drone-based sound fields. Her music has been described by Self-Titled as "heavily processed, incredibly powerful neo-classical pieces that seem to come straight from another astral plane." Her 2020 album The experience of repetition as death was hailed by NPR as "among the great ambient albums of the 21st century."

Esthesis will be performed by Clarice Jensen, cello and piano; Laura Lutzke and Ben Russell, violins; Isabel Hagen, viola; Paul Wiancko, cello; and Grey Mcmurray, guitar with video art projections by Testu Collective.