I CARE IF YOU LISTEN: Track Premiere: Invisible Anatomy Performs Facial Polygraph XVIA by Fay Wang
I CARE IF YOU LISTEN: Track Premiere: Invisible Anatomy Performs Facial Polygraph XVIA by Fay Wang
BY AMANDA COOK
"Today’s track premiere comes to us via the composer-performer ensemble Invisible Anatomy: Daniel Schlosberg, piano; Fay Wang, voice; Ian Gottlieb, cello; Paul Kerekes, piano; Brendon Randall-Myers, guitar; Benjamin Wallace, percussion.
Their debut album, Dissections, is collection of works that premiered at National Sawdust in 2016, all written and performed by the group’s members. The album is out March 30th on New Amsterdam Records–you can preorder it here or catch the album release show at (le) possion rouge on April 15th.
Vocalist Fay Wang‘s piece Facial Polygraph XVIA is a poetic study of facial expressions, dissecting tics, “tells,” and subtle changes of emotions. Here’s what she had to say about the piece:
I’ve always been intrigued by psychological investigation and mood induction, and I have a very sensitive intuition for reading people’s true intentions, even through tiny physical details. While writing for Dissections, the idea of dissecting/analyzing facial expressions came to mind immediately. I set the piece as two parts that go in extreme directions: the first half is sentimental, subtle and smooth with occasional aggressions peeking through, and the second half is mechanical, angular, rough, and dry, with directly-expressed aggression.
I thought of the two halves of a piece as depicting a mechanical/computerized face that 'crashes' or glitches, a metaphor for a double-sided personality–a warm-hearted, gentle human-being on the surface, and deep down a sociopathic, ruthless person. The two parts are linked by a transition of multi-tracked, densely-layered vocals, with the repeated text “adding stains, erasing stainless stains, achieve after penetrating,” indicating the sophistication of our emotional walls, full of hidden secrets."