JJJJJerome Ellis is a New York based composer, musician and poet. He performs original electro-acoustic music for saxophone, piano, synthesizer, and sampler. The three pillars of his music are improvisation, counterpoint (the weaving together of melodic and rhythmic layers, creating an effect similar to a Persian rug) and repetition (usually in the form of loops, short cycles of repeated sound).
He has announced the signing with NNA Tapes and the release of the debut album called The Clearing which will be out on November 5th via NNA Tapes & Wendy’s Subway In Partnership with The Poetry Project. According to the press release, it is a conceptual and musical tour de force that combines Jazz with the narratives of enslaved Africans, experimental electronics with historical accounts of Black rebellion. The album centers speech but uses it as a starting point to not only depathologize dysfluent speech but to build new tools to critique anti-Blackness, linear time, culture, and power in our society.
“Loops of Retreat” is the first excerpt.