Sailing the Solar Winds
Roscoe Mitchell
Christopher Douthitt
Princeton Laptop Orchestra
audiovisual album for reeds, percussion, and electronics
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Sailing the Solar Winds
Sailing the Solar Winds is an audiovisual album by Roscoe Mitchell and Christopher Douthitt with the Princeton Laptop Orchestra.
The music is spiky and abstract: we hear Mitchell’s eccentric reeds and percussion against the clack and rumble of the Laptop Orchestra’s modular synths and custom digital instruments.
A string of duos, trios, quartets, and quintets culminate in a radiant ensemble finale.
The video plunges viewers into Mitchell’s striking visual world. Mitchell performs in a hand-painted suit against a background of his own artwork. Members of the Laptop Orchestra appear as animated fragments of Mitchell’s paintings, writhing and warping with electronic sound.
The result is an avant-garde chimera—a genre-bending synthesis of creative improvisation, free jazz, and experimental electronics.
SEeking Partners
The primary production of Sailing the Solar Winds is complete. Only the final stages of post-production remain.
We are seeking a label partner to help us release, distribute, and promote this project.
We are inspired by the example of Promises, the critically acclaimed 2021 album by Pharaoh Sanders, Floating Points, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Also a collaboration between a legend of avant-garde jazz and a young electronic composer, Promises demonstrates the artistic potential and market viability of cross-generational, cross-genre experimental music.
We believe that Sailing the Solar Winds could find a similarly inclusive audience. This is niche music that appeals to adventurous listeners of all stripes.
full video (private)
full audio (private)
Contact
Roscoe Mitchell
Roscoe Mitchell is an internationally renowned composer, instrumentalist, and educator. A founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Mitchell’s iconoclastic music has stood at the forefront of avant-garde jazz and experimental composition for five decades.
christopher douthitt
Christopher Douthitt is a composer, electronic musician, and intermedia artist. Working collaboratively and across genres, Douthitt bends new technologies toward unique expressive ends. He is Lecturer in Electronic Music at Washington University in St. Louis.
Princeton Laptop Orchestra
The Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk) is an ensemble of computer-based electronic musicians at Princeton University. Since its founding in 2005, PLOrk has served as a highly collaborative creative incubator for composers, instrument designers, and artists worldwide.
