GINA IZZO (a.k.a. l a d y y b i r d d) on Tomorrow’s Yesterday
Far from conventional, ladyybirdd's debut album,"Tomorrow's Yesterday," is a personal exploration set to a landscape of electo-acoustic composition integrating improvisation, analog FX, with the flute at the center. While a flute may seem an unlikely candidate for musical insurrection, ladyybirdd brings dynamic intensity and unrestricted adventure. The album features original music by Gina Izzo, and contributions from Ambrose Akinmusire, Erika Dohi, Ian Rosenbaum, Immanuel Wilkins, Nick Dunston, and is produced by Joseph Branciforte.
What was the genesis of the project? How did it come together? Can you talk a little about analog fx and how they fit into your artistic practice?
ladyybirdd’s "Tomorrow’s Yesterday" [original music by Gina Izzo], is a debut album set to a landscape of electro-acoustic composition. The music integrates improvisation, and analog FX, with the flute at the center, featuring Ambrose Akinmusire (trumpet), Nick Dunston (bass), Ian Rosenbaum (percussion), Erika Dohi (Juno synthesizer), and Immanuel Wilkins (saxophone).
“Stay until you lose the urge to leave.” This was the only musical instruction I gave to my collaborators. Disrupted breathing, lucid dreaming, and ruminating thoughts connect intimately to the album’s musical narrative explored through electronic FX and the flute. This album is a personal response to loss and observing and experiencing the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep. “Threshold consciousness," (i.e. hypnagogia) is a state of being half awake and half asleep, and sparks hypnagogic hallucinations, lucid dreaming, and sleep paralysis. In an attempt to reshape direction, "Tomorrow’s Yesterday" explores the questions of how we can possess painful memories but not let them overpower us and how we internalize, normalize, and manifest trauma – through an electronic and visual landscape.
This is the first album I've done as composer/producer of my music but is a sound I have developed over the past ten years utilizing the acoustic flute through a series of analog pedals and modular synthesizers. The sound is altered through extended flute techniques and FX such as layering, looping, reverb, delay, and distortion, among others.
The album’s introduction track “Still” leads with subtle tension cycling round and round, with a breathy syllable on the flute through a delay pedal. The opening cycle is intersected by a field recording of an emergency room doctor, stating, “I had her here for at least an hour and a half, and she's just still,” setting the tone for the album's narrative which dovetails into its closing track. Lilting saxophone accents, subtle trumpet pitch shifts, and reverberated percussion creates tension across the album shifting between disturbing and reassuring, and trouble and calm, the album’s defining characteristic. Utilized as a synthesizer of itself on every track, the acoustic flute creates an entirely new identity.
How does this project manifest your identity and interests as a flute player? What do you see as the challenges and opportunities for moving the instrument forward?
There is a rare strength in the sound of ladyybirdd, one which is hard to find in the industry and hopefully positively surprising for listeners. In the studio, my flute processes through a series of analog guitar pedals that allow me to alter the sound of the flute through FX and create my musical vocabulary. It’s a sound I have been performing with for about eight years now — drawing upon ambient electronics and rooted in improvisation.
My mission to make the flute a protagonist straddling a line between experimental electronic music and the classical avant-garde fills unexplored territory and sets ladyybirdd apart in contemporary circles. Hopefully, ladyybirdd inspires other flutists and musicians to explore their unique sound worlds and create their own musical vocabulary, too.
My producer, Joseph Branciforte, is skilled in analog FX and synthesizers and has introduced me to many new ways to explore these sounds through my instrument. I went into the studio with concepts and ideas, which, when working with pedals, may often take new musical directions at the moment. Our ability to adapt and improvise around the unknown was perhaps our most significant learning curve and a gratifying part of our process.
What's the significance of the title, and how is that theme manifested in the piece?
Tomorrow’s Yesterday (i.e. a phrase someone once said to me “Today is Tomorrow’s Yesterday") refers to the idea that what we experience today becomes tomorrow's memories and our decisions, choices, and their outcomes impact everything that happens next.
