Robert Black: Possessed

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Recorded and filmed among the arches, cliffs and otherworldly rock formations of the Moab Desert in Utah, Possessed documents one musician’s self-actualized journey toward musical discovery and enlightenment. Equipped with only his upright bass and an intrepid production crew, Robert Black ventured into Moab in the summer of 2013 with the specific goal of engaging the environment itself in a duet, improvising his way toward a finished recording that perfectly captures the haunting majesty, mood and power of the American desert.

As the longtime bassist for New York’s genre-busting Bang on a Can All-Stars, Black is thoroughly tapped into the creative current of today’s new music. He’s also uniquely attuned to the areas where acoustic music and the sounds of nature can intersect, creating a third and totally unexpected entity that surges with unusually ecstatic energy. “Listen closely and feel the music,” he encourages in the album’s liner notes. “The sound, the look, the feel — it affects me. It gets inside my head, inside my body. My hands move, the bass sings, the landscape responds and directs the movements, controls the sound. The music comes…from I don’t know where. I close my eyes. I lose myself. I give in. I surrender. I am transported. I am…possessed.”