Vanessa Ague

New York

Writing about music @thewiremagazine @pitchfork @thequietus @icareifulisten @toneglow etc. | Blogging @theroadtosound | she/her

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Articles

Big Ears Festival 2025 Reminds Us to Open Ourselves to Wild and Wonderful Sounds

2 weeks ago | icareifyoulisten.com | Vanessa Ague

During the weekend of Big Ears, music is everywhere in Knoxville, Tennessee. Market Square, a central hub in the vibrant college town, is home to spontaneous jams, like an elderly fiddler or an impromptu set from a local band. Just down the street, within the festival’s official venues, you might find creative music star Wadada Leo Smith premiering new work, sets by iconic artists like Lonnie Holley, Michael Hurley, and Tortoise, or a critically acclaimed experimental songwriter like Mabe Fratti.
Five Scenes from Five Days in Knoxville, Tennessee

2 weeks ago | vanessakayague.substack.com | Vanessa Ague

Train tracks, empty, run under the bridge. A couple of loners walk across them like teens in the summer, not a care in the world but for a little bit of a thrill. Some mile-long freight trains sit perpendicular to the tracks, metal cars labeled with bygone logos are toppled over. A real jumble of junk.
A Weekend of Noise

1 month ago | theroadtosound.com | Vanessa Ague

The string quartet, accompanied by electronics, played harmonies that sounded unearthed from an illuminated manuscript of polyphony, pulled from its shimmering gold- and blue-lined vellum pages. Their open strings rang first with clarity, then with simmering rage forged in the fire of electronic feedback. A violin occasionally broke off and into a squealing pattern, singing a melody shrouded in ancient dust, as the others swarmed and cooed beneath.
Omaha Eternal

1 month ago | vanessakayague.substack.com | Vanessa Ague

Dear Reader,Do you ever think back on the moments that changed you? Especially if you expected nothing from them? I was only in Omaha, Nebraska for 36 hours, but it gave me a lifetime. See, I had to figure out where I was going, and the first step was finding a way off a train that was about to crash into a brick wall, cartoon style. What better place to do that than Omaha? Omaha is famous for its historic rail system; it used to be the gateway to the west, the stop you took before you got to gold.
Sarah Davachi, Dicky Bahto. Music for a Bellowing Room. | Sarah Davachi. The Head as Form’d in the Crier’s Choir.

2 months ago | musicworks.ca | Vanessa Ague

Sarah Davachi’s drones are unearthed from the deep. The Los Angeles-based Canadian composer’s pieces draw equally from the tenets of early music and La Monte Young-esque minimalism, blending ancient and modern into solemn meditations. Her latest two releases, Music for a Bellowing Room and The Head as Form’d in the Crier’s Choir, display the solitude and subtlety of her practice, each finding the smallest moments in time and stretching them out into the distance.
Welcome!

2 months ago | vanessakayague.substack.com | Vanessa Ague

Hello dear readers,Thank you for joining me here on Substack! Most of you know me as the person who writes about experimental music, which I do and will probably always do. But one thing about me: I love an adventure and I’ve been on many in my 20s. I visited Acadia National Park after graduating from college, the Berkshires to attend the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, Austin, Texas to write about worlds I had never known, the infamous Jandek mine show somewhere in upstate New York.
On the Long String Instrument, as seen at Roulette

2 months ago | theroadtosound.com | Vanessa Ague

“What’s the Long String Instrument?” my Lyft driver asked when he picked me up from the Albany-Rensselaer Train Station. I told him it’s a contraption of strings, invented by Ellen Fullman, that are pulled taught across a room, transforming the hall into one giant string instrument in which the audience sits; an experiment with resonance and timbre; a means of entering the inside of an instrument and peering into the parts that make it whole.
Fabio Mina – Existence / Resistance | The Quietus

Jan 15, 2025 | thequietus.com | Bobby Barry |Vanessa Ague

Fabio Mina uses his flute as a playground. The Rimini-born musician’s compositions grow from improvisations on his instrument that flit from ruminative melodies to breathy rhythms to dance beats. With Existence / Resistance, made in collaboration with producer Manuel Volpe, Mina presents a survey of his genre-blending, exploratory style in ten compositions inspired by the current of wind and the ideas of freedom and resistance.
Lakota Ontologies, AI, and Graphic Scores Find a Symbiotic Home in the Waking Dreams of Kite

Dec 17, 2024 | icareifyoulisten.com | Vanessa Ague

Wooden blocks in various shapes are stacked on top of bright floral blankets onstage at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer (EMPAC) on the evening of Friday, Dec. 6; the triangles, staircases, and crosses are derived from the Lakota language. Performing artist, visual artist, and composer Kite (Suzanne Kite) gathers around the blocks with seven students, and together they arrange them into mosaic graphic scores born from stories that came to them in their dreams.
Alexander Schubert x NEKO3 – Angel Death Traps | The Quietus

Dec 10, 2024 | thequietus.com | Bobby Barry |Vanessa Ague

There are no barriers in Alexander Schubert’s music. The German composer and professor aims to bring technology and music together, creating immersive experiences that challenge our perceptions of the sounds we hear. His practice is rooted in the idea of breaking down genres – something often heard in the classical composition world (and made famous by composers like the Bang on a Can trio or Max Richter).