For those unaware, in July 2022, Alexa Torres set out on a one-year trip to interview and collaborate with improvising violinists across Belgium, France, and Poland.

Her hybrid research and performance sojourn was funded by two prestigious awards: The Presser Graduate Music Award and The Fulbright Grant. Torres recorded her debut album, In Situ, in preparation for this journey, to reflect internally on the sound cultures that shape her personal musical milieu before turning her gaze externally to new soundscapes.

1. Yes or No
2. When the Wind Breaks the Chime
3. Along Came Betty
4. Consolidation
5. Inútil Paisagem
6. We See

The album opens on the rambunctiously flirtatious Yes or No and then we get brought forth the intricately harmonious When the Wind Breaks the Chime, the more stridently sculpted Along Came Betty, the studious Consolidation, the recording rounding out on the aching retreat that threads through the all-embracing Inútil Paisagem, closing on the flourishing We See.

“In situ is an archaeological term which refers to the original position of an artifact found in place,” Alexa reveals. “When I was 21, I spent five weeks excavating Maya ruins in the Belizean jungle. We spent 8 or 9 hours a day digging in the wet dirt, often without finding much. But I remember the sense of awe I felt when I finally found a tool. It was a scraper, carved out of stone. As I held it, I thought about how I was likely the first person to touch the tool in over a thousand years, and I imagined stories about the people who had used it before me so long ago. I wanted to bring that very particular sense of awe to this album.”

“The term in situ evokes a feeling of rediscovery and recontextualization which are things I really wanted to communicate. It also conveys a feeling of connection between past, present, and future. Artifacts found in situ represent material culture which we use to construct narratives of the past in order to better understand our present and our future.”

“I recorded this album right after I had finished my master’s degree in jazz violin from The University of North Texas. It was real transition moment – I was preparing to leave the country for an extended period of time, I was in the process of moving, and my future was uncertain. And I really wanted to use this record as an opportunity to sit in that liminal space between where you are coming from and where you are going.”

“I wanted to use it as an opportunity to reflect not just on this deep digging into jazz traditions I did in my master’s, and what it means to try to transfer these traditions to the violin, but to move further into the past to also reflect on my Cuban heritage, and on the years I spent living and performing in Chile.”

“I saw this album a sort of excavation of my own past, and also as a deeply personal, multilayered syncretism. When I say this, I mean that I saw it as a way of integrating the different physical spaces I’ve occupied, the various soundscapes I’ve encountered in those spaces, and also of uniting my research and performance practices.”

Alexa Torres, violin
Mario Wellmann, guitar
Josh Newburry, bass
Jordan Proffer, drums

We See (Monk) - Alexa Torres Skillicorn Quartet [Official Video]