Weston Olencki
Patrick Stadler
Katherine Young
Bridges Between Individual Trees
SIDEBAND RECORDS 13
CD and
Digital Download
Digital Download and
Streaming
Streaming
Bridges between individual trees explores the boundaries between instrumental and electronic sound, documenting over a decade of musical relationships between Weston Olencki, Patrick Stadler, and Katherine Young. From the fungal networks that inspire Young's Mycorrhiza II to Olencki' s archival and spectral experiments, the works illuminate the interplay between tradition and innovation, acoustic and digital, human and machine. The album project began in 2020 during the pandemic, when Young and Olencki worked independently with Stadler to create works that reflect the challenges and possibilities of remote collaboration.
This release collects collaborations that were brought forth in the isolating and fracturing moment of the pandemic. But where so many artists found estrangement and alienation, Young, Olencki, and Stadler find ecstasy and integration. Doubles, avatars, doppelgangers, uncanny valleys: each piece in different ways gathers the performer, their instrument, and their electronic other and joins them in utero. The entire album feels like a joyful embrace between the artists and their ideas. It practically trembles with excitement to share what they created with you.
Timothy McCormack, Composer, University of California San Diego (UCSD)
So much nature packed in—Young’s Puddles and Crumbs: human pulsation, invisible percussion rattling with joy. In Mycorrhiza II, high-frequency purity, like mountain lines after rain. In Olencki’s Tenor Madness: bees swarm.
So much data, too—Olencki’s Datalore: pantomiming video games? Receiving signals from other realms?
We forget noise, pitch, even virtuosity—drawn into the chaotic joy of the in-between: physical and digital, natural and synthetic.
The album closes with Olencki’s Giant Steps—a moment of spirituality, a quiet realization that the composer-performers here are kindred spirits.​
Wang Lou, Composer, Brown University
© 2025 by SIDEBAND RECORDS