Empty House Cooperative

Northeast USA based improvising collective features an extended family of musicians including members of Molasses, Thalia Zedek, Consonant, Pullman, Boxhead Ensemble, Willard Grant Conspiracy, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and The New Year. Though all of these artists are involved with significant other projects, the EHC has taken on a unique life of it's own. - - - - - - The Empty House Cooperative began in 1997 with casual gatherings for brunch and music at David Michael Curry's apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts.The limits of a conventional band setting led DMC to explore ideas of improvised music with like-minded friends. EHC has performed live soundtracks to silent films, improvised dinner music at restaurants, and transformed rock clubs. EHC provided music for the American Repertory Theatre's 2003 production of Highway Ulysses, and provided the ambient musical score to a marathon reading at the 2001 Jack Kerouac Festival in Lowell, MA. - - - - - - The music is melodic and musical but the open-ended, extended pieces float and shimmer with a minimum of structure and are marked by a nuanced melancholy. Closest musical parallels would include the Dirty Three and the Boxhead Ensemble (of which Curry appears on one recording). "Painted Plane" EHC's first release on Sedimental Records, features regulars Chris Brokaw on guitar and Jonah Sacks on cello, along with DMC on viola, loop samples, guitar & horn. It was recorded at MIT's WMBR radio station studio August 28, 2000 by Andy Hong and mastered by Jeff Lipton at Peerless Mastering. Several recordings exist at Dave's house, unreleased as of yet, and are given to friends in brown paper bags.