“Touching The Singularity” is due out in February. Hear one of the tracks, by Madison band Glassmen.
One of my favorite Madison-music surprises last year was the emergence of Olyvia Jaxyn, a singer-songwriter with skewed pop sensibilities and an aching but unearthly voice. Jaxyn is currently traveling around Europe, but has been organizing a new compilation that will feature their latest song, “Pix,” and music from a handful of other local artists.
The compilation, Touching The Singularity, will comprise five tracks and should be on Bandcamp in February, Jaxyn says. The other artists on the compilation are Madison experimental-rock duo Glassmen, electronic project Saint Saunter (the production moniker of DJ Sarah Akawa), Chicago’s David Poole, and Madison’s Romana Shemayev.
Money from a nearly complete crowdfunding campaign will be used to pay each artist a small honorarium, but the bulk of it will be donated to Trans Tech Social Enterprises, a Chicago-based organization that works to make the technology sector a more welcoming and empowering place for transgender people.
“We chose Trans Tech Social because we want trans and non binary people to have more power in coding our future,” Jaxyn says in an email conversation. “Sadly but unsurprisingly, we found very limited options for donating to such a project. Still, I was happy to find this initiative because the creator and director of Trans Tech Social is a trans person of color from Wisconsin, and the donations directly fund tech training for trans/queer folx who are unable to pay.”
Glassmen’s contribution to the comp, “All White, To The Ground,” is the first new recording in a while from the duo of Sarah Jennings Evans and Vivian Lin. It combines quavering vocals and tense, jagged rhythms over darkly handsome strings and synths, and we’ve got it streaming here. Glassmen’s next show is March 16 at The Wisco.
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