• Julian Cowley, The Wire, Issue 443, January 2021 https://www.thewire.co.uk/issues/443 Red Desert Ensemble, Chorochronos, Infrequent Seams, CD/DL/LP - Splitting their time between New York Brooklyn and a mountain cabin in Utah, percussionist Devin Maxwell and clarinettist Katie Porter have been honing their finely poised musical partnership for the best part of two decades. They came together as a duo when Michael Pisaro wrote Turning for them in 2002. It is revived here, sparse and tense, a prolonged, palpably gradual and finely balanced rotation around the threshold of audibility. Three other pieces fill out the picture. In Andre Cormier's Sommeil, trills and chimes are interspersed with muted tones and rumblings. Lucie Vitkova's Choral No. 13 is luminous and graceful. Maxwell's own Bonneville Park 3 is a spectral tour de force pitching acoustic instruments against textured electronics. Performances that testify to the deep affinity and meshed horizons that unite and energise Red Desert Ensemble.
Audrey Lockie, Slug Magazine, Feb 24, 2021 ​  
www.slugmag.com/music/reviews-music/local-music-reviews/red-desert-ensemble-chorochronos/​CHOROCHRONOS lives in the crevices in between sounds; in the space between an incidental grumble and an actualized statement. But rather than drift toward ambience or sonic wallpaper, the duo of Katie Porter (clarinet and bass clarinet) and Devin Maxwell (percussion and electronics) favor a balanced determinism and provide each sound here with the force of intention—even if such a sound barely rises into audibility. Whether through auditory illusions such as pitch and timbre matching or an expert approach to contrast, Porter and Maxwell take the admittedly strange instrumentation of their duo and the even more obviously strange content of these four compositions and approach a unity full of naturalism and stoicism.
The apex of this synchronicity arrives through Maxwell’s own “Bonneville Park 3,” a piece for clarinet and electronics. A majority of the piece’s 11-minute runtime finds Porter’s clarinet tones in  harmony with the sparkling electronics of Maxwell’s synths. Its most stunning moments blend the competing sounds into a vibrant mass, forming a choir of coalescing tones without obvious source or reference point. As the piece drives toward its final minutes, though, Porter’s long tones morph into a cyclical melodic pattern while Maxwell’s swirl of synthesizers grows in intensity. The entrance of a thunderous bass tone grounds the previously airy piece, and “Bonneville Park 3” reaches a moment of climactic reward unlike any other on the album.
The unexpected fervor found in the conclusion of “Bonneville Park 3” points toward Red Desert’s underlying mischievousness—a willingness to subvert expectations. André Cormier’s “Sommeil” begins with a stumbling barrage of percussion sounds and a jester-like clarinet melody, a passage of thuds and flits that stands apart from the whispered nature of the rest of the record. This bombast almost immediately dissolves into steady timpani rolls and low-volume clarinet moans for most of the piece’s runtime, only for the duo to hard cut the drones off with what sounds like an elevator-door chime and close out with an unexpected return to the sonic carnival of its opening.
If these two opening pieces provide a wealth of structural experimentation, their counterparts on CHOROCHRONOS’ second side embrace repetition and austerity. Both Lucie Vitková’s “Choral No. 13” and Michael Pisaro’s “Turning” follow a similar structure: single bursts of sound interspersed between bouts of silence. “Choral No. 13” works with more overt variety, differentiating each sonic stopgap with a grab-bag of warbling percussion sounds and some delightfully eyebrow-raising harmonies. “Turning” burrows further toward an idiosyncratic limit point, stretching out the silent interludes while each instance of feather-light clarinet notes and percussion rustlings speak only through whispered rasps. Without the structural surprises of the preceding tracks, “Choral No. 13” and, especially, “Turning”  lay bare the beauty of sound for the sake of the beauty of sound.
If the surface of CHOROCHRONOS presents a record full of placid sounds and an almost self-flagellating embrace of repetition and near-silence, the deeper layers reveal a novel approach to subtlety and musical care that makes minute changes in decibel or pitch feel like exercises in long-distance running. In their performance of these four works, Porter and Maxwell showcase an empathetic approach to the art of the avant-garde duo—never does either musician envelop the other, and never does anyone attempt to wrangle these beguiling, glass-fragile compositions out of their always-disappearing outlines. –Audrey Lockie
OUR DEBUT ALBUM, CHOROCHRONOS FEATURING WORKS BY ANDRE CORMIER, DEVIN MAXWELL, LUCIE VITKOVA AND MICHAEL PISARO ON THE NYC LABEL INFREQUENT SEAMS - OUT DEC 18, 2020 on LP/CD and digital download!!
​https://reddesertensemble.bandcamp.com/album/chorochronos

CHOROCHRONOS is a collection of four gorgeous experimental works for clarinet, percussion, and electronics. Red Desert Ensemble (clarinetist Katie Porter and composer/percussionist Devin Maxwell) lovingly recorded duos they've performed for almost two decades in small spaces, for even smaller audiences all over the US (and Canada) by composers André Cormier, Lucie Vítková and Michael Pisaro alongside a huge new spectral work for clarinet and electronics by Maxwell.

The result is exceptional, a document of music trapped in ether or volcanic rock, both unearthed stillness and totally jarring, a perfect music-as-art for our time. With cover artwork by Christine Heindl, liner notes by Adam Tinkle, design by Phillip Niemeyer and video art by Svavar Jónatansson and Dev Harlan, the album is released on vinyl, CD, and digital download by Infrequent Seams. CHOROCHRONOS follows Red Desert Ensemble's tradition of inviting audiences into the sound world of avant-garde music with practiced interpretations, attentive curation, and insightful performances.

UPCOMING SHOWS!
DEC 17-20, 2020 INFREQUENT SEAMS STREAMFEST
​We will be livestreaming works off our new album, CHOROCHRONOS along with tons of other amazing experimental artists.  https://www.infrequentseamsstreamfest.com/home/fri-dec-18​

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 Red Desert is the duo project of clarinetist Katie porter and composer/percussionist Devin Maxwell.  We have been performing, commissioning, creating, and championing interesting music for over 17 years.   Our repertoire consists primarily of living composers, especially ones that strive to challenge and enrich our understanding of what music is and can be. 
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