SplinterMount, ME::YOU

SplinterMount and ME::YOU

Tickets $15 or PWYC

SplinterMount is olula negre (cello/voice), Torstein Johansen (bass), Alex Henry (sax), and Grace Harper (piano).  The group explodes the atomic centers of tone, timbre, and texture, reassembling the shards into a cohesive, emotive whole. SplinterMount was born from the musical incubator that is the monthly Outlab improv sessions at Cleveland's Bop Stop.

The quartet pieces together the multiple influences brought by each member, layering them to craft a sound that uses the language of free improvisation, while constantly pushing against the boundaries of that language. SplinterMount has opened for such artists as Tatsuya Nakatani and Jessica Pavone.

ME::YOU is the collaborative project of Cleveland artists LaToya Kent and RA Washington, whose work examines the social and historical possibilities of experimental popular music through an intentionally intimate framework. Emerging from years of collaboration within Mourning [A] BLKstar, the duo foregrounds improvisation, minimal production, and the expressive potential of the voice, drawing from post-punk, industrial music, dub, hip-hop, free improvisation, noise, and Black vernacular musical traditions without treating these genres as fixed categories.

Their compositions function as sites where personal narrative, embodied performance, and sonic experimentation converge, revealing how Black experimental practice continually reshapes the boundaries between popular music, avant-garde expression, and everyday life.