Cuneiform Records is proud to announce the release of Chris Cochrane’s Collapsible Shoulder Big Band Live 2019 : A Map Of Books, co-produced by the Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, and featuring performances by a host of luminaries.

This recording is comprised of two concerts of the band recorded live at Roulette in 2019 and 2020, with a small amount of studio work to shore things up, but the atmosphere and energy of the band playing in the venue is captured. The recording consists primarily of original compositions by Chris, and also cover tunes by Robert Pollard, Fred Frith, This Heat, and a bit of Erik Satie thrown in for good measure.

From 2016-2020 the Collapsible Shoulder Big Band became an annual event made up of an array of musicians based in New York, with other special guests coming through town. “I started doing this as an annual birthday concert, gathering musicians together from many projects and eras and we’d collaborate on these one- time gigs,” Cochrane says. “As the band grew more diverse in membership we began making more elaborate arrangements, and taking advantage of member’s history of improvisation, composition and vocal arrangements.”

The band members are Chris Cochrane, Gordon Beeferman, Brian Chase, Richard Dworkin, Kato Hideki, Stuart Popejoy, Sulynn Hago, Marlon Cherry, Stew Stewart, Gelsey Bell, Syd Straw, Sarah Bernstein, Eszter Balint, Kevin Bud Jones, Jim Pugliese, Hanna Fox, Eddie Gormley, Killian Karlsson, Zeena Parkins, and John Thayer.

Collapsible Shoulder's music is drawn from its member’s years in the international, downtown NYC and Brooklyn music scenes: neo-psychedelic, electro-acoustic, with unpredictable twists and turns.

Cochrane formed Collapsible Shoulder in 2014 and was comprised of Mike Duclos, later Kato Hideki, Brian Chase and Kevin Bud Jones, who remained at the core of this recording. “We originally thought it to be a quartet of two guitars, bass and drums, but through a happenstance injury, one guitarist was unable to play, and so he cobbled together a lot of analog synth components, instead of guitar, which greatly changed the dynamic, and gave us an immediate new sound.”

Chris is a Brooklyn-based musician guitarist improviser noise maker collaborator and composer. Chris has worked with many musicians including Zeena Parkins, John Zorn, Tim Hodgkinson, Billy Martin. Loren Connors, Marc Ribot, Jamaaladine Tacuma, Gabby Fluke-Mogul, Brandon Lopez, Gelsey Bell, Galvin Weston, Stew, Eszter Balint, and many others. Chris formed the band No Safety with Zeena Parkins and was a member of Curlew. He has also composed music for dance, theater and film since arriving full time in NYC, over forty years ago. He plans to continue to collaborate and make music as long as he able to.

Live 2019: A Map of Books press release