Produced by Erik Friedlander
Recorded by Scott Solter at Story Sound in New York City
Assisted by Jeff Cook
Mixed by Scott Solter in Durham, NC
Mastered by Steve Berson at Total Sonic Media
Design by Vanessa Maynard

All music composed by Erik Friedlander.
All rights reserved

Rings is the latest album from Erik Friedlander, the NYC-based cellist and composer, featuring his band Black Phebe, with Friedlander on cello, pianist and accordionist Shoko Nagai and percussionist Satoshi Takeishi.  Rings comes at you from different angles: there are times when the band plays with seductive confidence, loneliness and insecurity.  The unifying theme of the project are the cycles each piece follows.  “Each piece has repetition built in.  These cycles or rings are the building blocks of the project, sometimes long and sometimes as short as a few seconds,” says Friedlander.

Black Phebe is really several trios.  Nagai’s charismatic performance on accordion and piano changes the feel of the group depending upon which instrument she’s playing.  When she plays accordion the band is a world-music juggernaut playing virtuosic, mixed meter works (“Risky Business”) or sweet folk songs (“Small Things”).  With Nagai on piano, the band is a piano trio (“Black Phebe,” “Fracture”) or a classical chamber group (“A Single Eye”).

At the heart of the album are Friedlander’s Rings; three pieces that use live looping as a compositional tool.  On these pieces, we hear Friedlander create the composition as the trio improvises with him and around him.  “The Rings are a new thing for me. I’ve never been a fan of looping as a compositional technique but I changed my mind when I tried it with this band.  I create the ring as we improvise and the result is hypnotic and beautiful, but organic,” Friedlander says.

RINGS REVIEWS

“The music is widescreen and it is easy to imagine several of the pieces being used in movies. The whole album… is indeed both beautiful and organic. ‘Rings’ serves as an ideal introduction to new listeners and will hopefully make even more people discover Friedlander's wonderful music.” Jakob Baekgaard, All About Jazz

“‘Rings’ comes at you from different angles: there are times when the band plays with seductive confidence, loneliness and insecurity. The unifying theme of the project are the cycles each piece follows.” Essmaa, Horen…

Read more Rings reviews here

1. The Seducer

2. Black Phebe

3. A Single Eye

4. Fracture

5. Risky Business

6. Tremors

7. Small Things

8. Solve Me

9. Canoe

10. Waterwheel

11. Flycatcher

12. Silk

Release Date: June 10, 2016