Rachel Eckroth and John Hadfield are wonderfully inventive musicians who have formed a duo. This podcast episode is shining a light on their recently released album “Speaking in Tongues”and you’ll hear some of this textured and dynamic music that really pushes the boundaries of a duo,  along with insights into their creative process and their varied career paths. 

  John Hadfield  is a phenomenal percussionist, drummer, and composer, for many years based in New York and now based in Paris. He’s collaborated on over 100 recordings including Grammy-award winning albums. He talked to me about performing with Kenny Werner, with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silkroad Ensemble, as well as John’s Paris Quartet.

 Rachel Eckroth was nominated for a GRAMMY for her album “The Garden” and she is very active as a keyboardist, vocalist, composer, producer and arranger. She tours currently with St. Vincent, and she talked to me about her keyboards, and some of her formative experiences. 

Both Rachel and John love to explore new sound colours both acoustically and with electronic instruments and this album is a powerful, inventive and immersive listening experience. You’ll find this project linked in the show notes, and hopefully some of you can attend  their live shows on one of their tours. 

 Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast on all the podcast platforms, and I’ve also linked the transcript to my website

Speaking in Tongues albumRachel Eckroth websiteJohn Hadfield website

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 I wanted to let you know about some other  episodes I’ve linked directly to this one, which I think may interest you, with: 

 Ineke Vandoorn

Naomi Moon Siegel 

 Chuck Copenace   

 DeWitt Flemining Jr.  

 Lisa Pegher

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(02:45) duo project, Speaking in Tongues album

(07:45) clip from Speaking in Tongues

(08:27) Gamelan strips, John’s Gamelan studies in Indonesia

(10:50) Phase and Libration Part 1 from album Speaking in Tongues

(14:18) formative experiences Rachel and John

(19:54) God Particle, creative process of the album

(22:13) clip from God Particle 

(23:24) Rachel’s album One improvised piano music, her creative practice and challenges of touring

(26:35) Light Sleeper from Rachel Eckroth’s album One 

(28:59) Paris, Dennis Rowland,  Rachel’s keyboards, John’s collaborations Sara Caswell

(34:17) other linked episodes you’ll like and ways to support this series

(35:06) John’s Drum of Stories album, Collin Walcott, John’s use of electronics with acoustic

(38:25) Rachel’s touring career

(41:20) Kenny Werner, different performance experiences

(44:10) Women’s March 2017, life-changing opportunities

(48:19) clip from Andromeda from Speaking in Tongues

(49:53) New York City early career

(52:34)Silkroad ensemble, Yo-Yo Ma

(55:35) projects toge