Neutral Buoyant - an immersive album release concert by Nathan Davis, with new works that divine and magnify the bowed psaltery. Nathan Davis "writes music that deals deftly and poetically with timbre and sonority" (NYTimes), with premieres at Lincoln Center, BAM, and the Park Avenue Armory. Inspired by natural processes and acoustic phenomena, his works reveal and exaggerate subtle complexities of sound, forming an architectural sound-world through which the listener travels in experiencing a piece.

In Neutral Buoyant, Nathan turns his attention to the bowed psaltery (an American folk instrument) in a series of composed improvisations made with and without electronic processing. Approaching the psaltery as a glorious collection of monochords, Nathan employs violin bows, electromagnetic bows of different kinds, and guitar slides to activate the harmonics of its 33 open strings. Evoking ambient works by Eno and Laraaji, and spectral soundscapes of Saariaho, this collection of work display undulating drones, prismatic shifts of harmony, and microtonal vibrancy, creating motion while suspending time.

For this special presentation, Nathan is joined by visual artist Liz Liguori (La Mama Galleria, Lazy Susan Gallery, and 222 Bowery Art) for otherworldly live projections of light and water that respond in real time to frequencies in the music. He also performs synchronously with a screening by video artist Monica Duncan (LACMA, The Kitchen, Roulette, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm), whose closeup videos of fabric and fiber echo the tension and repetition of the psaltery’s strings.