The Gate is Dan Peck (tuba and effects, composition), Tom Blancarte (upright electric bass), and Brian Osborne (percussion). Based in New York, since 2008 they have released eight albums and completed three international tours. The music of The Gate is an amalgam of free jazz, ambient noise, and metal; muddy double-bass rumblings obfuscate any clear melodies, often elevating the percussion into the foreground of the texture. The heavier moments of a Gate set are sometimes complemented by slow, grinding noise-scapes. Dan Sorrells of Free Jazz Blog says [of their Stench LP (2014)]: “In a way, Stench embodies a strain of aural nihilism that most metal bands should be jealous of. There’s no neat chord progressions or blast beats or perfectly rhythmic tremolo picking. Convention is simply suffocated in its relentless, unbounded force.”
Wombat Trio is Justin K Comer (saxophones, objects), Carlos Cotallo Solares (guitar, electronics), and Will Yager (double bass, objects).
Heather Stebbins is a sound artist who makes sparkly, gritty, and pressing music for instruments and electronics. She is an Assistant Professor of Music at George Washington University, where she teaches electronic and computer music.
