Prussian Folklore

See the boy with the cheap Silvertone guitar. It cost his Grampy a whole 72 bucks way back in 1962, standing in line at Sears behind an old woman and her moon landing play set. Skip to the year 2000. You can almost hear the old hand offer up the family axe for a second time. This here’s a two-tone achromatic wonder, his Grampy tells him, made of vinyl, fingersweat and pumpkin spice. A silver lipstick canister for a pickup. Once upon a time it belonged to your father. Now it’s yours.

His family are gardeners. They teach him how seeds take a long time to grow and how people tend to want give up on plants that don’t seem to succeed right away. But, Grammy says, they’ll usually surprise you. And in this vein the boy starts cultivating songs. Friends and towns and jobs and bands wash over him like spring rain as he tends his baby sprouts. A handful of slow roasted melodies grow in makeshift studios until he has a full harvest.

On a clear day you’ll find him out in the pastures gathering wildflower seeds and tuning those old family strings to nitrogen levels in the soil. Go on then. It’s okay. Kneel down to gather up the fallen fruit. You might see something like indie rock printed alongside, but I assure you these crops are 100% pure uncut dirt-core, glam-country, story-wave toil of the land, pollinated by the same swarms of bees to which the boy is allergic and from whose sting once he nearly died.

But he didn’t. In fact, that boy’s never died. Not even once.

And he's gathering some of his best buddies for a rocking set at the Zacc.

Modality is a Montana- and Virginia-based quartet of Charles Nichols (electric violin and computer), Clark Grant (guitars and keyboards), Ben Weiss (synths), and Jay Bruns (electronics and video synthesis). Swimming through oceans of sound, Modality conjures immersive, psychedelic, beautifully strange worlds, sonic paintings for fans of ambient, drone, krautrock, and contemporary music.  

Their practice is to co-compose, harvesting material from longform improvisations, and collaboratively arranging and re-recording. Since 2013, they have worked telematically between their four studios, in Missoula and Butte, Montana, and Blacksburg, Virginia. In 2016, Modality toured Montana, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia, starting at the DAT Music Conference in Missoula and ending at the Cube Fest at Virginia Tech.  In 2020, they performed telematically, streamed live to Newcastle Upon Tyne, England for the Network Music Festival, and recorded live and streamed from St. Petersburg, Russia for the Theremin Fest. In 2021, they performed telematically, streamed live to Stanford, CA for the Society for ElectroAcoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) Virtual National Conference.  In 2023, they were an ensemble in residence at Amherst College and closed the Stargazer Festival in Charlotte, NC. 

Modality has released four albums – Particle City (2012), Under the Shadow of this Red Rock (2016), Megacycles (2020), and Embodiment (2024) – as well as a split with the band Lazertüth, The Moruvians (2018). These and other recordings can be found at https://modality.bandcamp.com.

Modality will be joined on stage at the ZACC by Kyle Hutchins. Kyle is a visionary experimental performance artist, composer, improviser, and educator, forging new sonic frontiers with his saxophone, voice, cutting-edge technology, and an arsenal of unconventional instruments. Hailed as “epic” (Jazz Times) and “gripping” (Star Tribune), Kyle’s music has been showcased at prestigious venues like Carnegie Hall and The Walker Art Center, and featured at festivals across five continents, including the World Saxophone Congress, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, and the International Computer Music Conference. His artistry has earned him accolades from DOWNBEAT, New Music USA, The American Prize, and American Protégé, as well as recognition in The Roanoker Magazine’s “40 under 40” for 2024.