New Album: In Plain Sight, out 8/20

In Plain Sight is the debut solo record from Chicago-based musician Jeff Kimmel. Best known as a clarinetist in Chicago’s improvised and experimental music community, this album is a broadening of his musical palette with the use of tape machines and electronics. Each of these pieces began as layers of tape loops created on a 4-track cassette recorder. Drawing upon his years of experience playing in ensembles, Kimmel improvised with these loops using a variety of synthesizers, effects pedals, piano, and bells. The album offers the listener an immersive sonic world, guided by a sense of narrative, while fragments of melody linger in meditative repetitions.

releases August 20, 2026 on Low Impact Recordings

Listen and purchase here

Vivary

I'm pleased to announce Vivary, a new album with Ishmael Ali and Bill Harris on Amalgam, that releases 5/7.  We'll be celebrating with a live stream from Constellation that evening.

Cover art by Jordan Martins

 

Words by Peter Margasak:

The music on Vivary captures a much different approach, balancing a research-like exploration and a refined understanding of how to arrange elusive sounds in real-time. On the opening piece “Sett,” for example, the trio almost stacks its sounds vertically. There is movement, but it’s within a deliciously narrow space, as if the musicians are looking for all of the ways they can stack a series of acoustic and electronic objects using ever-shifting densities, angles, and energies. It’s fascinating to experience such a kinetic, jagged improvised sound and simultaneously surrender to its spell. “Ranarium” layers astringent, shape-shifting electronic tones complemented and pierced by extended techniques from Harris, leaving the listener to wonder if the sounds are emanating from a percussive sphere, or if the shimmering tones are simply swallowing everything in their path. 

You can listen and pre-order here.

aqua.flv at Elastic 11/30

I've put together a.pe.ri.od.ic's next concert at Elastic on Friday, November 30 at 8:30pm.

video still by Kim Alpert

The concert will feature a new piece I've developed in collaboration with Kim Alpert, using webdriver torso videos. The program will also feature a solo piece for bass clarinet by Linda Catlin Smith and works for ensemble by Makiko Nishikaze and Jürg Frey.

Makiko Nishikaze - moremelodies I (2014)
Jürg Frey - Extended Circular Music No. 8 (2014)
Linda Catlin Smith - Blackwing (2018)
Jeff Kimmel - aqua.flv, with 3D video by Kim Alpert (2018)
[3D glasses will be provided.]

Performers:

Eliza Bangert
Nomi Epstein
Jeff Kimmel
Kenn Kumpf
Matthew Oliphant
Ryan Packard
Robert Reinhart
Sam Scranton

Julie Pomerleau, Johanna Brock, and Whitney Johnson will open with a viola trio.

Thanks to Bill Meyer for the preview in the Chicago Reader.

stück 1998 / anchor 2018, February 16-24

I'm thrilled to be a part of an exciting series of performances created by choreographer Ayako Kato at Links Hall during the next two weeks. She has realized 30 pages of Wandelweiser composer Manfred Werder's 4000-page piece stück 1998. As the composer specifies that a single page of the score can only be performed once, each evening will feature a different excerpt of the score and uniquely explore the intersection between music and dance.

photo by Deidre Huckabay

Day 1: Friday, 2/16: Music/Sound First
Day 2: Sunday, 2/18: Dance/Movement First
Day 3: Thursday, 2/22: Music and Dance as Equals
Day 4: Saturday, 2/24: Independence of Dance/Movement as anchor 2018

Links Hall, 3111 N Western Ave, performances begin at 7pm.

Tickets are available here or at the door.

photo by Deidre Huckabay

Composition by Mandred Werder; Actualization by Corinne Imberski, Wilson Tanner Smith, Jeff Kimmel, Christina Martin, Ayako Kato; Choreographic Direction by Ayako Kato with movement invention with artists; Costume by Amanda Franck.

You can read an interview with Ayako about this project here.

Time With People

a.pe.ri.od.ic gives the US Premiere

of

TIME WITH PEOPLE

an experimental opera by Tim Parkinson

February 26, 2017, 8:30pm

Frequency Series, Constellation

'Time With People' is not an opera in the traditional sense. There are no characters, costumes, or even orchestral instruments. Instead, the stage is set with trash and other assorted objects. The soloists and chorus speak, dance, chant, and drum. And the only “classical” music comes from a recording.

Alternately funny, playful, perplexing, and sad, the work challenges audiences to reconsider their preconceived notions of the nature of music. Writing about the world-premiere performance at HCMF in 2013, Lawrence Dunn remarked, “This is a world in which music is a kind of memory—something that must be reconstructed from the ground up, and afterwards returned to the same ground.”

This​ ambitious project was brought to fruition thanks to the Sponsored Artist Program at High Concept Labs, where a.pe.ri.od.ic has been preparing the work over the last 5 months.

distance from you & distance from each other

On Thursday, October 20, I'll be part of a Parlour Tapes+ curated concert at the Comfort Station, performing two new works:

first,

Jane Ate Soup
a no-instrument symphony and/or ensemble theater piece
co-created by Deidre Huckabay and Jessica Anne

honoring the onstage death of Jane Little
bassist in the Atlanta Symphony
and holder of the world record for longest professional tenure
in an orchestra
(what a way
what a way
what a way to go
go on now)
with performances by people you love
including
Lia Kohl, Michael Lewanski, Jess Aszodi, Jeff Kimmel, Zach Moore
and others

second,
distance from you & distance from each other

a piece about pneumatic engineering
and dad texts
(here are your tax returns
here are pictures of some of the bottles
here is the contact for Susie)
with a spiritual undertone
or overtone
created using flutes, clarinets
vinyl tubes, ceramic tile, wicker rattles
and other trash
composed by Sam Scranton
with Deidre Huckabay and Jeff Kimmel
and performed by Sam, Deidre, and Jeff
together

the goal is to honor everyone
and ourselves

the program is maybe an hour long
including intermission

---

Thursday, October 20 - 7:30pm
Parlour Tapes+ presents: Jane Ate Soup by Deidre Huckabay and Jessica Anne, and distance from you & distance from each other, co-created with Deidre Huckabay and Sam Scranton @ Comfort Station

Morton Feldman's Bass Clarinet and Percussion

I'll be performing Morton Feldman's Bass Clarinet and Percussion in collaboration with percussionists Chris Sies and Isaac Stevenson on Sunday, June 26 at Constellation, as part of a.pe.ri.od.ic's Feldman/Earle Brown program.

Looking forward to diving into this serene and challenging piece.