Janel Leppin

Leppin while recording Mellow Diamond in 2012 at the Brink Analog and Digital Studio; it is her first solo recording.

Janel Leppin, photographed by Shervin Lainez in 2016 in Brooklyn, NY.

Janel Leppin is an American cellist and multi-instrumentalist. Her work has been shown at the San Francisco Modern Museum of Art, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts^[1] and at many international festivals worldwide including the High Zero Festival, the Swedish Women in Jazz Festival and the Washington Women in Jazz Festival. She has acted as curator for works shown at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Issue Project Room.^[2]

Leppin released two solo recordings, Mellow Diamond and Songs for Voice and Mellotron on her record label Wedderburn Records in April 2016. She collaborates as part of Janel and Anthony with her husband, American guitar player Anthony Pirog.^[3] Recordings of her work as a composer and side musician appear on Touch, Tzadik, Sub Pop, Editions Mego, Ideologic Organ and Cuneiform Records. Her work recalls experimental, avant garde, modal jazz, free jazz, classical, ambient and rock elements in her recordings and performances.^[4]

Janel and Anthony

Leppin recorded two albums with Anthony Pirog as "Janel and Anthony", one self-titled and self-released recording in 2007; as well as Where is Home, released by Cuneiform Records in 2012. A Fifth Anniversary Collectors Edition LP was released of the duos, recorded in 2010. A single, Sweet and Sour was released in March 2016 when they announced their forthcoming album, Glover Park.^[5]

In February 2016, Leppin started a label called Wedderburn Records which released "music which has a magical or mystical essence".^[6] The label's first release was "Sweet and Sour" by Janel and Anthony, followed by Leppin's first two solo albums Mellow Diamond and Songs for Voice and Mellotron. Leppin planned to release solo work by female artists^[7] including American pedal steel guitar legend, Susan Alcorn and DC avant pop vocalist, Adriana Lucia-Cotes.

Songs for Voice and Mellotron by multi-instrumentalist and composer, Janel Leppin at the Wilderness Bureau in 2016.

Solo Recordings

Leppin performing live on the M4000D.

In April 2016, Leppin put out two solo recordings with stark differences. On Mellow Diamond, Leppin drew from far and wide, from avant-garde pop to ambient style. She recorded analog synthesizers, a harpsichord, pedal steel, a cello, mellotron, and found sound samples and radio frequencies, to name a few. Several political messages are found interwoven throughout the work, notably in "Belly of the Beast"—about living in Washington D.C.—,^[8] "No Treaty", and "Cast in Gold".

Originally called Songs of the One-Armed Woman, Songs for Voice and Mellotron was written in 2015, when Leppin injured her right elbow and was unable to perform solo concerts on her primary instrument, the cello.^[9] The EP-length recording includes politically-charged music, such as "Paris", calling for people to remember all deaths from terrorist attacks after the deaths in Paris in 2015—"these deaths are all wrong from Paris to Palestine"—and called attention to the possible affects of American drone strikes—"our drone war is unfolding, spilling blood on all soil." The second track, "In A Dream", was a work about global warming—"the rich sirens scream, as totems rise from the sea. Ivy crawls where ice used to be and life becomes a long-lost melody." Most tracks were recorded live with Leppin singing and playing the M4000D simultaneously, with very little overdubbing.

Jazz Works

Ensemble Volcanic Ash is Leppin's avant-jazz chamber group, including harp, bassoon, cello, and alto saxophone. The group was premiered before a sold-out crowd at the legendary Bohemian Caverns in Washington D.C. to rave reviews, being called "Aaah-vant Garde [sic] at its finest."^[10] The ensemble has been joined by Sarah Hughes, Mary Lattimore, Amy Bormet, Amy Frasier, Jacqueline Poullaf, Betsy Wright, Jaimie Branch.

Ensemble Volcanic Ash performing at the Bohemian Caverns, led by composer Janel Leppin.

References