Sontag Shogun is a collaborative trio that makes use of analog sound treatments and nostalgic solo piano compositions in harmony to depict abstract places in our memory. Albert Peacock grew up performing with local hardcore bands as a teenager, but has spent much of his adolescence and early adulthood working with field recording, tape manipulation, and “found sound” composition. Taking inspiration from acoustic ecology, as well as the 1980’s and 90’s power electronic/noise scene, Peacock applies Schaefferian compositional techniques to create frantic, yet immersive sonic landscapes that are equal parts brutality and beauty.

Sontag Shogun

Sontag Shogun is a collaborative trio that makes use of analog sound treatments and nostalgic solo piano compositions in harmony to depict abstract places in our memory. Textures built from organic materials such as sand, slate, boiling water, brush and dried leaves, both produced live in performance and recorded to weathered ¼" tape warm up the space between lush piano themes. All of which is abstracted coolly in the reflective digital space of treated vocals and a live-processed feed from the piano. Bringing us back, like a faded passing scent or any natural emotive trigger, but to where? The wordless journey there will inevitably be more revealing than the destination itself.

The band has improvised alongside artists as diverse as Matana Roberts, Julia Kent, Oren Ambarchi, Greg Fox, Shinya Sugimoto, Tom Carter, Diana Combo and Aki Onda as well as poets, choreographers, butoh dancers, filmmakers, an improvised fashion designer, a collective of Japanese contemporary video artists, slide projectionists, and scentscape installation artists. They’ve been Hans Appelqvist’s backing band, they’ve done weddings, they’ve performed with a string quartet at MoMA, they’ve performed in 40 speaker channels, they’ve scored short films and curated live film scoring evenings, they’ve recorded sections of Meriwether Lewis’ 1804 journal, they’ve played during a performance installation of a giant 18-foot living flower sculpture, they’ve scored an old-timey baseball game in Brooklyn, opened (somehow) for legendary post-punks The Primitive Calculators and This Is Not This Heat on separate occasions.

And they have shared the stage with other notable artists including Hauschka, Maggi Payne, David Grubbs, Ben Vida, Fly Pan Am, minamo, Christopher Bissonnette, Nicola Ratti, Hans Appelqvist, Chris Forsyth, Mountains, Sam Shalabi, Noveller, Helena Espvall, Jerusalem in my Heart, Sculptress of Sound, Earthen Sea, Johannes Bergmark, Moskitoo, Ultraam, Machinefabriek, F.S. Blumm, Blevin Blectum, Asuna, Marcus Fischer, Hiro Kone, Andrew Bernstein, Bromp Treb, The Dead Rat Orchestra, as well as many, many others..

Sontag Shogun is Ian Temple: piano, organ; Jeremy Young: tapes, oscillators, amplified objects & surfaces; Jesse Perlstein: treated vox, field recordings, electronics.

Albert Peacock

Los Angeles native and UCSC student Albert Peacock grew up performing with local hardcore bands as a teenager, but has spent much of his adolescence and early adulthood working with field recording, tape manipulation, and “found sound” composition. Taking inspiration from acoustic ecology, as well as the 1980’s and 90’s power electronic/noise scene, Peacock applies Schaefferian compositional techniques to create frantic, yet immersive sonic landscapes that are equal parts brutality and beauty. Peacock is currently based in Santa Cruz, CA where he works and goes to school full-time.

Split into three acts, Peacock’s Music for Spring (2022) presents a triptych of sonic snapshots utilizing field recording, tape manipulation, and power electronics in an attempt to archive the emotional turmoil of Art, Industry, and Health in the modern world.