Threshing Floor
The music within the grooves of this platter is made for elevation. It is made for levitation. Roky Erikson’s brand of levitation. Where the soul leaves the body behind and rises up, where the body meets the soul and gives it the foundation it needs to accept the rules of the world.
The Threshing Floor is that part of the farmer’s field where the crops are brought to process; grain is winnowed. The Threshing Floor has been historically thought of as MAGICAL…as both sacred and profane. As a place of cultic activities and ritual sacrifices. No crops are planted here…leaving the opportunity for the fertile flat space to become electrified at midnight, with farmworkers shakin’ it on down under the light of the moon.
Ruth went to find Boaz at The Threshing Floor. She went to find food for her family. Ruth lay down with Boaz on the Threshing Floor, finding love and life. When the dawn came Ruth’s family was fed and she and Boaz were on the path to marriage.
On Shavuot 2020, in the middle of a historic pandemic, a cast of renegade noisemongers created a drone model of the Threshing Floor, offering a respite from the chaos of the eve, a moment to provide shelter from the storm. For 20 minutes, these witches and renegades filled the space with rumbling reverberations and souring sonic outbursts inviting the listener to lay down…as Ruth lay…to lay down and be taken away. Let the music flow on through, providing strength for the Dawn and the knowledge that the Dawn would bring.
The Threshing Floor was an experimental experiment, improvising together apart during a time of plague, taking a usual time of togetherness reverberations and mediations and instead finding a unified voice by sharing ideas across currents, many miles apart, and using the time tested accompanist named chance to take the beautiful wandering vibrations and lace them together into the blanket of sound before you.
Music does heal, it does strengthen. It can wash over and make alive. Please lay down with us and lose yourself to the sound of The Threshing Floor.
You can download the digital album and buy the limited-edition vinyl here!
Enjoy the beautiful video that Rebecca Odes created for DAWN below:
Gretchen Gonzales Davidson
Reboot Board MemberGretchen Gonzales Davidson grew up in Flint, MI. She graduated from Michigan State University with a dual-degree in Anthropology and Environmental Policy. She moved to Detroit in 1998 as a musician, where she played in numerous bands. Gretchen has an event production company and serves on numerous boards including Detroit Children’s Fund, Michigan Council of Arts and Cultural Affairs, Cranbrook Academy of Art, and CultureLab Detroit. She has three boys with her husband Ethan.
Rebecca Odes
Multimedia Artist and WriterRebecca Odes is a multimedia artist and writer. She is an author and illustrator of four books about life stages and personal identity and the cofounder of gurl.com, wifey.tv, and most recently, thecherrypicks.com.
Alan Licht
Musician and WriterA musician and writer, Alan Licht’s has appeared on over 100 recordings that range from indie rock to minimalist composition to free improvisation. Recent releases include Currents, a solo acoustic album, and Tomorrow Outside Tomorrow, a collaboration with Tetuzi Akiyama, Rob Mazurek, and Oren Ambarchi. A contributing music editor at BOMB magazine who has written frequently for Artforum, Art Review, Modern Painters, Parkett, and many other publications, he is also the author of Sound Art Revisited (Bloomsbury, 2019) and the editor of Will Oldham on Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (Faber & Faber/W.W. Norton, 2012).
Wolf Eyes
Experimental Music GroupWolf Eyes is an American experimental music group from Michigan, formed in 1996 by Nate Young. Currently the group consists of John Olson and Nate Young. Wolf Eyes are a prominent act within contemporary noise music. They have collaborated with a variety of artists from different countries and art forms. The group has released 297 recordings during their 21 years of ceaseless prolific activity. Official releases have appeared on labels including but not limited to the Lower Floors, Hanson Records, Bulb Records, American Tapes, Fusetron, De Stijl Records, Sub Pop, Troubleman Unlimited, AA Records, Gods of Tundra, Freedom From. They have collaborated with Anthony Braxton, Merzbow, Sonic Youth, Black Dice, Double Leopards, John Wiese, Mammal, FLUCT, MV Carbon, Twig Harper, Jaimie Branch, Richard Pinhas, and Smegma and many more.
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