Annika Socolofsky & ~Nois' record "I Tell You Me" celebrates queer joy and defiance. “Grotesquely gorgeous” (Chicago Tribune) and “unbearably moving” (Gramophone), Socolofsky’s original 3-song cycle riffs on the old nursery rhyme “sugar, spice, and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of,” questioning gender roles and rejoicing in the beauty of queer self-expression and empowerment. The album turns this old nursery rhyme on its head, asking “what are little girls made of?” and channels feminist rage and defiance at the double standards placed on women and queers in our society. In the spirit of individual expression, the song cycle is followed by remixes of each song in the cycle, each created by a different queer artist: Phong Tran, Darian Donovan Thomas, and No Plexus and celebrating their unique voices through their own performances, composing, and production.
Released: September 8, 2023
Composer: Annika Socolofsky
Performers: Annika Socolofsky (voice) and ~Nois
Producers: Annika Socolofsky & Julian Velasco
Phong Tran, Darian Donovan Thomas, and No Plexus, remix artists
Mike Tierney, editing, mixing, mastering
Mert Gerçer, mastering
Jonathan Gallee, Recording
Tara Knight, album artwork
Samantha Godoy, album design
Don’t say a word // new Amsterdam Records
Annika Socolofsky & Latitude 49, Link to Album
On June 23, 2023, Annika Socolofsky, a composer and avant-folk vocalist who explores colorful corners of the human voice — tones and timbres and techniques often dismissed as “untrained” or “unclassical” — releases Don’t Say a Word, an album of feminist-rager lullabies for the new queer era. Socolofsky, a “grotesquely gorgeous” (Chicago Tribune), an “unbearably moving” (Gramophone) composer, possesses “just the right balance between edgy precision and freewheeling exuberance” (The Guardian). And on Don’t Say a Word, a rebellion against the hetero-patriarchy, her voice carries us to worlds tender and violent and everything in between.
Latitude 49, instrumental ensemble
Max Geissler, cello
Andy Hall, saxophones
Andy Hudson, clarinets
Jani Parsons, piano
Chris Sies, percussion
Timothy Steeves, violin
Producers: Pascal Le Boeuf, Annika Socolofsky
Engineers: Jonathan Galle, Andy Hall, Andy Hudson, Jani Parsons, Chris Sies, and Timothy Steeves
Mixer: Michael Hammond, David Darlington - Editor
Mastering engineer: Valgeir Sigurðsson
Other Albums (composer)
To The Ground from the sky // Redshift Records
TorQ Percussion & The Elora Singers, Link to Album
New on Redshift Records: Continuing a long-standing interest in music written for percussion and voice, TorQ Percussion Quartet and The Elora Singers present "To the Ground From the Sky", an album of works for chamber choir and percussion quartet. Inspired by Paul Frehner's stunning work "Corpus", originally commissioned by Soundstreams Canada for TorQ Percussion Quartet and the Stuttgart Chamber Choir, TorQ and the Elora Singers commissioned three more works from notable composers Carmen Braden, Annika Socolofsky and Melody McKiver. The result is an album filled with emotionally charged and sonically arresting music that pairs the Elora Singer's smooth, flexible sound with TorQ's broad palette of percussive textures.
Released July 7, 2023
"Domino Domino Domino" composed by Carmen Braden
"dust to dusk" composed by Annika Socolofsky
"Corpus" composed by Paul Frehner
"river woman" composed by Melody McKiver
Recorded July 29 - August 1 at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto.
engineered by Greg DeClute
assistant engineer Mathieu Perrier
edited and mixed by Ray Dillard and Randy Crafton, R&R Mixing
mastered by Graemme Brown at Zen Mastering
cover photo and album design by Jamie Drake
produced by Ray Dillard, Mark Vuorinen, Richard Burrows and Jamie Drake
Hymns for Private Use // Bright Shiny Things
Akropolis Reed Quintet and Shara Nova, Link to Album
Hymns for Private Use is the 5th album released by the Detroit-based Akropolis Reed Quintet and features original works by composers Annika Socolofsky and Nico Muhly. On Socolofsky’s so much more, Akropolis is joined by 7 small business owners from 4 states whose personal stories of community and sacrifice are woven together on a spoken word track, sourced from over 7 hours of interviews conducted in 2020. Soprano Shara Nova joins Akropolis on Muhly’s Hymns for Private Use, which draws upon 5 spiritual texts from early English sources from the 12th to 18th centuries. These two large-scale works are connected by intimate stories of ambition and devotion made available for each listener’s own “private use.”
Released: October 28, 2022
Composers: Annika Socolofsky, Nico Muhly
Performers: Akropolis Reed Quintet and Shara Nova
Producers: Courtney Snyder Ng and Annika Socolofsky
Recorded at First Presbyterian Church in Ypsilanti, MI & Blue Sword Studios in Detroit, MI
Scribe: Sean Meyers
Recorded and Edited by Dave Schall Acoustic
Mixing and Mastering by Nick Lloyd; Cover Art and Album Package Design by Marian C. Holmes
Wax and Wire // new amsterdam records
Latitude 49, Link to Album
Cross-continental new music powerhouse Latitude 49 returns with flair and passion on their sophomore release Wax and Wire. This dynamic collection takes the listener on a genre-bending journey, careening wildly from the visceral to the sublime. From the psychedelic pulsations of Gabriella Smith’s Number Nine (an homage to the Beatles’ “Revolution 9”) flows Viet Cuong’s whimsical showpiece Wax and Wire, establishing the record’s charisma and variety right away. Ruminant works by Annika Socolofsky and Chris Sies direct us inward: Socolofsky’s a sense of who challenges us to consider ourselves in light of the communities we inhabit, while these (were) used to harm by Latitude 49’s own Chris Sies employs effects inspired by specific songs that have been used as means of torture against a sometimes thrashing chambercore background. Two works by Sarah Kirkland Snider provide the record’s most intimate moments, with the swirling trio Thread and Fray unfurling tightly-knit textures while the cleansing, haunting, but ultimately hopeful You Are Free closes out the record in a state of utter contemplation.
Released February 7, 2020
Composers: Annika Socolofsky, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Gabriella Smith, Viet Cuong, Chris Sies
Performers: Latitude 49
Produced by Doug Perkins Engineered, Edited, Mixed and Mastered by Bill Maylone with additional mixing and editing by Doug Perkins Additional editing and mixing by Doug Perkins and Chris Sies (track 5); Album Artwork by Jacen Paige
Second Flight // Innova Recordings
Jonathan Hulting-Cohen, Link to Album
Second Flight presents eight genre-hopping world premieres, some solos, some collaborations. Rudresh Mahanthappa’s I Choose You for two alto saxophones, inspired by Pokèmon battles, draws on the improvisational traditions in both classical and jazz traditions. Eric Wubbels recalls the inter-genre work of Anthony Braxton and Matthias Spahlinger in his saxophone and drumset duo, Axamer Folio, while Annika Socolofsky draws new sounds out of the saxophone and piano with multiphonics, cello bow hair, and an e-bow to evoke the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle. Ingrid Arauco approaches Ruby without extended techniques, committing instead to the wide breadth of tonal possibilities characteristic of the saxophone. Felipe Salles combines the call of the Brazilian uirapuru bird with an electronic jazz quartet to create a rhythmic and driving work in conversation with 20th Century classical music.
Released 2020
Composers: Annika Socolofsky, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Joan Tower, Filipe Salles, Stephen J. Rush, Eric Wubbels, Ingrid Arauco, Salvatore Macchia
Performers: Jonathan Hulting-Cohen and Rudresh Mahanthappa, Axamer Folio, Dennis Sullivan, and Nicholas Shaneyfelt
Executive Producer: Jonathan Hulting-Cohen; Mastering Engineer: Piper Payne of Infrasonic Sound; Design: Philip Blackburn
Album Cover Photograph: “Entrx” from the Detalles Arquitectónicos 2017 series, Adela C. Licona.
Collider // Concert Artist Guild Records
Sinta Quartet, Link to Album
Sinta Quartet’s debut album, Collider, comes from the work by Roger Zare entitled LHC, which stands for Large Hadron Collider. The LHC is "the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator" owned and operated by CERN in Geneva, Switzerland (quoted from CERN's website). We also see this album as a *collision* (although hopefully much more orderly than a collision housed in the LHC) of several different styles of compositions written by 10 unique and powerful composers.
Released 2019
Composers: Annika Socolofsky, Andy Akiho, Roger Zare, Kristin Kuster, Nathalie Moller, Joseph Bozich, Thierry Escaich, David Kechley, György Ligeti, Gregory Wanamaker
Performers: Sinta Quartet
After years of experimenting with electronic vocal effects to extend the capabilities of the voice, Irish composer Alex Dowling has released his debut album, Reality Rounds, on Carrier Records. Written for ‘AutoTune choir’ and synthesizer, the work was performed live by four singers, each controlling their own vocal effects in real-time. The innovative use of effects allows for a stunning array of sounds from rapid flickering textures to unusual tunings that would be impossible for a normal choir to sing. Breaths build into propulsive rhythms by imprinting amplitude modulation on the singers’ voices (Channeling II) and two-voice hocketing with delayed harmonizers forms complex interlocking patterns (God Rays)…
Released January 31, 2020
Singers: Emma O'Halloran, Annika Socolofsky, Chris Douthitt, Alex Dowling; Synth: Pascal Le Boeuf
Produced, Mixed, and Mastered by Alex Dowling
Album Artwork by Angela Guyton
This land sings // naxos records
By Michael Daugherty, Link to Album
In This Land Sings, GRAMMY Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty has created an original musical tribute to the singer-songwriter and political activist Woody Guthrie (1912–1967). Traveling the backroads of America from coast to coast with a guitar and harmonica, Woody Guthrie performed folk songs of love, wandering and social justice during the Great Depression and the Second World War. Daugherty has composed his own original songs and instrumental interludes that give haunting expression, ironic wit and contemporary relevance to political, social and environmental themes from Guthrie’s era. Under the baton of GRAMMY Award-winning conductor David Alan Miller, the Albany Symphony’s new music ensemble Dogs of Desire, joined by soprano Annika Socolofsky and baritone John Daugherty, give a poignant and rousing performance.
Released May 2020
Performers: Annika Socolofsky (soprano), John Daugherty (baritone), David Allan Miller and the Albany Symphony Dogs of Desire
Best of Your Lies // Carrier Records
By Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves, Link to Album
Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves’ “electro-country” sound is both freshly nostalgic and startlingly unique. Hard-driving synthesizer licks meet tight three-part vocal harmonies, buttery bloops and bleeps, crying pedal steel, and pounding electronic beats in the band’s first full-length record, “The Best of Your Lies.”
Released November 30, 2018
Featuring: Owen Lake: vocals, synthesizers, and drum programming; Pamela Stein Lynde: vocals (5, 8, 10, 12); Domenica Romagni: vocals (1, 4, 10); Anica Mrose Rissi: fiddle, harmony vocals Mark Harris: electric guitar, harmony vocals; Rich Hinman: pedal steel guitar; Mike Mulshine: synthesizer, harmony vocals; Mark Eichenberger: electronic drums, percussion. Featuring the Owen Lake Strings Violin: Anica Mrose Rissi, Jeffrey Kuan, Dan Trueman, Cleek Schrey, Annika Socolofsky Viola: Henry Valoris Cello: Domenica Romagni, Tomasz Rzeczycki Conductors: Ruth Ochs, Mike Mulshine And Special Guests Annika Socolofsky: vocals (2); Pascal Le Boeuf: Wurlitzer electric piano (8); Susan Alcorn: pedal steel guitar (3, 5); Caroline Shaw: fiddle (2); Noah Fishman: mandolin (7), electric bass (2, 7, 9); Quinn Collins: electronics and effects (2)
Synth: Pascal Le Boeuf
Recorded by Jeff Snyder at the Princeton University Electronic Music Studios; Mixed by Matt Mehlan; Mastered by Sarah Register; Album design by Eric Li and Helen Lin