Molly Joyce couldn’t be any more transparent about her disability—to the point where surgical records double as lyrics on her upcoming album, State Change. Joyce was seven years old when a car accident nearly led to the amputation of her left hand. A subsequent series of operations met with varying success. Regardless, the Pittsburgh native and Julliard graduate has thrived as a performer, composer, educator and recording artist. She’s teaching music composition at NYU, and she recently provided the score for Ted Passon’s Patrice: The Movie, a rom-com documentary that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this past year.
Available July 11 via Better Company/130701, Joyce’s latest solo album is a logical and remarkable extension of her doctoral work in adaptive music technology at the University of Virginia. Co-produced by Grammy winner William Brittelle (Bryce Dessner, Dirty Projectors, Wye Oak), State Change translates rotation, pressure and gestures into a modernist soundscape using motion-capture systems, the Kaiku Music Glove and Bela Trill touch sensors. “August 13 + 16, 1999” focuses on a pair of surgeries: the transfer of a lower abdominal muscle to the left forearm and a skin graft from Joyce’s thigh.
“After the second operation, they determined that the muscle was nonviable in the left forearm due to poor blood flow, so they needed to discard it,” she says. “I’m not trying to get at this for a sense of pity or regret—more just musically and artistically exploring how that can sound and viscerally feel.”
It was Brittelle and engineer Michael Hammond who suggested bringing in Fire-Toolz’s Angel Marcloid for the scream-like vocal. “I love the concept of lyrics coming from something that was never intended to be lyrics,” says Marcloid. “I don’t work with such minimal music that often, so it was very freeing to have such a wide-open space to perform the words. I also felt vulnerable … quite uncomfortable, if I’m honest. I appreciate art that makes me uncomfortable.”
We’re proud to premiere Molly Joyce’s “August 13 + 16, 1999.”
—Hobart Rowland
