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Joshua Abrams (musician)

Joshua Abrams is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist who plays the double bass and guimbri.

Career

While living in Philadelphia in the late 1980s, Abrams was a member of Square Roots, a street music group that developed into The Roots. He moved to Evanston, Illinois in 1991, and played in Chicago house bands for several years before forming Town & Country in 1998 with Ben Vida, Liz Payne, and Jim Dorling. Abrams was the house bass player at Fred Anderson's Velvet Lounge and for several years he played a weekly club date with Tortoise's John Herndon and Jeff Parker. He was a member of Mike Reed's Loose Assembly and Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble. In 2003, he played bass on Godspeed You! Black Emperor's album Yanqui U.X.O.. He has worked as a studio musician on recordings made in Chicago, such as Jandek's Chicago Wednesday; Bonnie "Prince" Billy's Beware and albums from Chicago musicians such as Joan of Arc, David Grubbs, and Sam Prekop.

In the early 00's, Delmark released his acoustic quartet album Cipher and Lucky Kitchen released his solo soundscape albums. He recorded albums under the name "Reminder" for Prefuse 73's Eastern Developments label and Easel. In 2010, Abrams started the band Natural Information Society releasing albums by Eremite Records. In 2018 he received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award.

As a film composer, Abrams has written music for director Steve James and for Life Itself, The Interrupters, The Trials of Muhammad Ali, ', and the documentary series America to Me. He performed and composed music for the play At Twilight by Simon Starling, with Theaster Gates at Documenta 13, and in exhibitions by Lisa Alvarado.

Discography

As leader or co-leader

With Town & Country

  • Town and Country (BOXmedia, 1998)
  • Decoration Day (Thrill Jockey, 2000)
  • It All Has to Do With It (Thrill Jockey, 2000)
  • Up Above (Thrill Jockey, 2006)

As sideman

With Joan of Arc

  • Orchard Vale (Record Label, 2007)
  • Boo! Human (Polyvinyl, 2008)
  • Flowers (Polyvinyl, 2009)

With Nicole Mitchell

With Mike Reed

With Dave Rempis

  • Aphelion (Aerophonic, 2014)
  • Perihelion (Aerophonic, 2016)
  • Apsis (Aerophonic, 2019)

With others

References

External links