With a gift for interweaving different styles and ideas to produce mellifluous, eloquent soundscapes, Balmorhea (pronounced bal-mə-ray) – the Texas based duo consisting of multi-instrumentalists Rob Lowe and Michael A. Muller – have been hailed by The New Yorker for their “slow-burning ambient Americana” and by The Atlantic for their “stunningly gorgeous music”.
Balmorhea began life in 2006 when Lowe and Muller met and made music at a summer camp in the remote Texas Hill Country. The two friends continued experimenting and exploring after they returned to Austin, where they combined complex layers of guitar and piano sounds in ways that appeared to mirror the majestic mountains and rugged landscapes of their home state.
Since then, eight studio albums, various EPs, remixes, a live album and more than a decade on the road have helped secure cult status for Balmorhea. Lowe and Muller have performed both as a duo and as the core of variously expanded Balmorhea ensembles to audiences around the world, everywhere from cathedrals to rock clubs, art galleries to Berlin’s Funkhaus and Bozar Brussels.
Open to a striking range of genres and cultural influences, their distinctive form of minimalism, spacious and sublime, embraces everything from the classical tradition and experimental acoustic folk to post-rock experimentalism. While often evoking the sights and sounds of nature and the changing seasons, their music has a depth that also leaves it open to the listener’s own interpretation.
Balmorhea has toured the US and Europe eight times each, including shows in China, Mexico, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey and the Ukraine. Notable shows alongside such varied acts include Efterklang, Nils Frahm, Grouper, Mono, Thurston Moore, Stars of the Lid, and Tortoise. Additionally, the band has played dozens of festivals including Austin City Limits, SXSW (x6), Fun Fun Fun Fest, Utopia and Hopscotch. Their music has been featured and reviewed by Pitchfork, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Atlantic and many more.
The group’s album, Clear Language, was released by Western Vinyl, in 2017. An accompanying tour, visited cities across the U.S. and Europe and supported by Martyn Heyne.
The band scored the feature film Un Homme Pressé for director Hervé Mimran. Starring Fabrice Luchini and Leïla Bekhti, the film had its premiere in November 2019, in Paris.
Following 2022’s deluxe reissue of their 2021 album The Wind (featuring remixes by Portico Quartet and Joseph Shabason), a stunning live film, and newly commissioned works for Nils Frahm’s Piano Day, Brian Eno’s EarthPercent and Randall Poster’s Birdsong Project, Pendant World – the group’s latest album, released in June 2023 – sees Balmorhea forging new ground and expanding their pool of exciting collaborators. On Pendant World, Lowe and Muller are joined by experimental jazz saxophonist Sam Gendel, regular collaborators violinist and vocalist Aisha Burns and cellist Clarice Jensen, and a distinguished line-up of guest artists, including composer and percussionist Jason Treuting, vocalists Steph Jenkins and Lisa Morgenstern, clarinetist Jonathan Sielaff, and Joseph Shabason on tenor saxophone and flute.
The new album dissolves hard genre boundaries to reveal a spectrum of musical styles, instrumental textures, propulsive rhythms and multihued tonal colours. The music was recorded in ideal conditions in rural Vermont in collaboration with three-time Grammy-winning engineer and producer Jonathan Low (The National, Taylor Swift, Sufjan Stevens).
Balmorhea have just completed a short run of live dates, including a show at London’s Barbican on 14 July (more to be announced).
Balmorhea (prononcé bal-mə-ray) est un groupe instrumental d’Austin, TX. Fondé en 2006 par Rob Lowe et Michael Muller, le groupe a produit six albums complets en plus d’un album live enregistré dans une cathédrale belge, des remix variés d’une panoplie d’artistes, ainsi que les singles “Candor/Clamor” et “Heir”.
Influencé par une ville d’environ 500 personnes dans l’ouest du Texas qui est également le nom de leur groupe, les débuts professionnels de Balmorhea rappellent des motifs du sud-ouest américain: le folklore des colons Texans, les proclamations émotives du cadre montagneux, et des études intimes sur la solitude, la nature et la nuit.
En ajoutant progressivement à leur ensemble au fil des années, dont une section de cordes et une percussion complète, la musique riche et superposée de Balmorhea continue d’être à la fois concise et complexe, unissant seule une collection de textures et d’espace pour créer un paysage qui défie les genres.
Balmorhea, appelé, “une expérience exemplaire retenue” par le New Yorker, a fait huit tournées aux Etats-Unis et en Europe chacune, dont des représentations en Chine, au Mexique, en Russie, à Taiwan, en Turquie et en Ukraine. Les représentations notables aux côtés de divers artistes comprennent Efterklang, Nils Frahm, Grouper, Mono, Thurston Moore, Stars of the Lid, et Tortoise. De plus, le groupe a joué à des douzaines de festivals dont Austin City Limits, SXSW (x6), Fun Fun Fun Fest, Utopia and Hopscotch. Leur musique a été présentée et révisée par Pitchford, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Atlantic et plus encore.
Leur nouvel album, Clear Language, sortira en septembre sur Western Vinyl, le label de longue date de Balmorhea. Une tournée accompagnante et des visites de cités à travers les USA et l’Europe apporteront de la vie à Clear Language avec un groupe complet de multi-instrumentalistes, et l’ensemble sera enveloppé d’une projection lumière/vidéo qui sera développée afin de refléter le ton émotionnel de Clear Language. Les spectateurs pourront aussi s’attendre à entendre des œuvres classiques de All is Wild, All is Silent, Stranger, Constellations — dont le dépouillement incite aux comparaisons avec Clear Language – et plus encore du catalogue important de Balmorhea, remontant à 2006.