Working on a new record! Meanwhile, this one is a cycle of songs devoted to transformation, and asks for a path to a new sort of kindness. This album is co-produced by rock icon Kip Winger and features guest performances by Ottmar Liebert, Moira Smiley, Jon Gagan, Jerry Weimer, Tawanda Suessbrich-Joaquim, Calvin Hazen, Char Rothschild, Dana Winograd, and Yuko Shimokawa.
“I feel the summons to music in the same part of my heart that feels the seasons; the long light, the deep-seated aloneness in our culture, and its longing for company. Call it quirky. Call it New Mexico. I’ll try to play something for both those lineages, and I’ll hope to heal myself and others along the way.”
Singing songs of his own making, and accompanying them with instruments such as the West African kora, guitar, drums, and percussion, Robby Rothschild draws from the dual wells of tradition and personal expression. Known for his work with his brother, Char, in the duo Round Mountain, as well as his recent international tours as percussionist for Kip Winger and Ottmar Liebert, Robby’s solo work represents a furthering of his search into musical wilderness, and a deepening of rawness and vulnerability such as true wilderness and a path of loss brings to all of us.
Music has called him in many directions, including to Mali, West Africa, whose music infused and possessed him, and to conservatory, where he achieved a master’s in composition. His pursuit of the sound emerging in his ears continues to guide him today.
Writings
To embrace time
Let me brave enough to embrace time. To trust the kindness in its hands upon my face, upon the grain of what wood I am. Let me know, where my feet step, some of its strength and its humility. Let me raise sail before its tailwind. Let the drawbridge open and the full...
Coffee altar
Coffee altar, where mind's music climbs the ephemeral trellis, the beanstalk, and floats out briefly on the dark, cool water... by what fermentation process can you stay and populate the river valleys that feed into it, that feed into me and all of us growing by its...
My mother’s natal river
Dear holy of holies, I know it's a little late to be praying, this far into the meal, but thank you to the deer who became this venison, to the face before the flash photograph who became this me of a night at the brink of summer. Thank you to the Chebeague shore...
Maybe
Maybe there isn't youth enough to overflow that well at every season, the way it once appeared there was. Maybe certainly. Maybe our ease and accuracy is reduced, our harbor stripped of shelter, our knowing rounded and eroded into grainy image and a fainter likeness....
Annapolis
Drained upside down, a heart becomes a leaf; drunk sideways, a smile. When you chisel into a block of ice, a spring of blood can ensue, most likely your own. The fear knotted hard against a blade, the blade of uncertainty of being received -- that will never withstand...
Parting waters
I'm sitting opposite my burden here in emerging day, its darkness and straps and weight. I want to share a coffee and a slice of quiche together, as we contemplate a life ahead alone, beyond these vast parting waters. I want to say thank you for the help, my daemon,...