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
Ripples on the current
River current in a flat place, I must own you are not often what I see, which might be an audience of wind across your face, or even a tide grinding against you. The flurries and furies and backwaters of the moment have no bearing for or against the certainty of your...
Wounded spiritual bypass
How we pertain to our beliefs-- how our truths can prosess/opess us! In point: "our wounds are our teachers" becomes a brittle one. Yes, I believe something inside that like a coal, or hovering beyond like a great distant height. But right now, the tenacious throb my...
Soul rosin
Soul rosin, grip these strings, let the friction make me sing. Resonance, catch me and speak through. I'm hoping to release a din of nothing to say, in favor of a few necessary vibrations. I'm hoping to help out here.
Pissed illumination
It occurred to me last night that a room full of people has a face, and when you are playing music for them, it's very acceptable and even a good idea to look into that face and address yourself to it. Unnerving. Energizing. And more daunting still, to listen back to...
Missed coffee sacrament
I took in something deep by accident in a coffeeshop today. The barista was bringing an offering of new-made coffee forward toward no one, toward the mobile order pickup dock that lay empty and soundless, in the direction of the entrance. Just then someone walked in,...
Shpilkes and a fork
Is there any other way to come home? Divesting ourselves of accumulated foam, returning to believing. Not in anything, just believing. Believing the land. All the fears it raises to be small, to leave yourself vulnerable and tide-exposed. Where yet, somehow, all the...