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Ménage has just released a full-length live album: Ménagerie: Ménage à Trio Live at Conflikt 2019. As you might guess, it’s a live recording of Ménage’s concert at Conflikt 2019. For that concert, we were joined onstage by Amy McNally (fiddle) and Dr Mary Crowell (clarinet) — so for this concert, we are Ménagerie.

This is not simply a “raw” recording of a live concert; Betsy and Alec have spent quite a bit of time tidying it up, mitigating issues like audience coughs and inter-instrument volume/balance as best we could. We didn’t “clean up” any of the raw energy, enthusiasm, or joy that was part of this recording, though! You’ll be able to hear our (enthusiastic and chaotic) audience calling out prompts before each song; you’ll hear us creating new music in the moment in response to those (often interesting) prompts; and you’ll probably also be able to tell what a giant bunch of dorks we all are. We have so much fun making music together!

Ménagerie is now available on our Bandcamp page, both as a download and as a physical CD! 

My string improv trio, Ménage à Trio, has a brand new album! It’s called Iménagening, and it’s just a wee EP (because pandemic) of four songs… but such sweet songs!

All of the pieces on Iménagening were improvised on the spot (the way we always play together — with no advance planning and no retakes). One was improvised “in studio”, about two years ago. But, the other three songs were recorded on Betsy’s shady front lawn on a lovely day last summer. We were socially-distanced at the time, so were pretty surprised at how well the recordings came out. Of course, there were birds and airplanes and a bit of wind noise, because the recording was made live and outdoors. (And, we were very happy to be together, alive and outdoors, at the time!)

Iménagening is available on Bandcamp, both as a download and as a physical CD.