Baker Artist Portfolios

I am a Baltimore-based multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser committed to expanding the resources of musical performance and perception. My work is guided by the generative tension between experimental and traditional approaches. The son of a musician and instrument-builder, I was exposed to a wide variety of music from an early age, most importantly to American folk music, which has had the greatest impact on my subsequent music-making. Early experiences playing fretless banjo and cello planted the seeds of dissatisfaction with the guitar, my primary instrument. Guided by the example of Mauritania's classical guitarists (the subject of my ongoing independent scholarship), I modified my guitar in 2009 to be able to play in Just Intonation—an ancient tuning system built on simple mathematical principles and related to the physical mechanism of hearing itself. Just Intonation allows me greater fidelity to the traditional musics that initially inspired me and greater flexibility for more experimental work. In terms of process (not necessarily style), Minimalist music has proved a flexible medium to realize this synthesis. Much of my recent professional activity has been as the guitarist (and occasionally cellist) in Horse Lords, a leaderless quartet founded in 2010. Horse Lords use rock instrumentation and other aspects of the rock idiom as an enabling constraint—exploiting the physical power of high volume and rhythmic repetition, while thinking outside of its limits. Using modified instruments, extended instrumental techniques, and compositional strategies derived from both classical Minimalism and from vernacular sources (ranging from folk textiles to house music), we explore the physics of sound and the psychology of hearing, with the goal of leading both players and listeners to a state of positive disorientation. Concurrently I have worked as a free improviser both both in groups and as a soloist, challenging myself with sounds and techniques that positively alienate me from musical grammar and from my own musical habits. In 2019 I took part as one of two US representatives in Moers Festival's Global Improvisers Orchestra (in Moers, Germany), joining an international group of widely varying musicians for a week-long residency, culminating in two concerts and a short documentary.