‘Winter Music’ is a new solo album by Chaz Knapp, recorded outdoors in the dead of winter. Following the spirit of his Microfolk series, this record explores how acoustic improvisation takes form in snow and sub-freezing temperatures, with frozen hands, minimal takes, and warped instruments.
Built around three cassette players and a live looping process, Winter Music features nylon-string guitar (with a neck that shrunk in the cold), voice, banjo, harmonium, bansuri flute, and shruti box. Knapp would record short loops to cassette, then improvise over them on the spot. The sessions were captured with a Zoom recorder for the tape loops and two condenser mics for the live instruments – no overdubs, no second takes. Winter Music is a quiet, solitary work shaped entirely by winter and its constraints, which culminates in a raw, imperfect, and deeply reflective sound. Out now on Aural Canyon.
Purchase Cassette: Chaz Knapp – Winter Music
Joyful Union Cassette Resource 