That the cello at the start of “Sit on the Floor and Wait for Storms” might be mistaken for processed voice says something about musician Lia Kohl’s modus operandi. “Sit on the Floor and Wait for Storms” is the first track to be made available from Kohl’s forthcoming album, The Ceiling Reposes, due out in late March. The music initially layers sawed strings and buzzing kazoo, the various waves like threads in a thick fabric that’s being woven in real time, right before the listener’s ears. When a voice arrives, a snippet of a weather report, our senses have been primed: the man’s tone fits in with the soft coarseness of what’s come before. The storm does appear, in that the music gets more and more erratic, the processed sounds fragmenting and frazzling, while also congealing — all until the man’s voice is lost in the enveloping, consuming mix — perhaps disappearing entirely. Perhaps becoming one with the other sound sources.
https://liakohl.bandcamp.com/album/the-ceiling-reposes/
More from Kohl, who is based in Chicago, at liairenekohl.com. The album comes out on the American Dreams label (american-dreams.zone) March 10, 2023.