Brilliant and ingenious violinist Jessica Moss is the latest artist to join the incredible cluster of stars orbiting our favourite Constellation. As a violinist, backing vocalist and co-composer, she is best know as a member of cult chamber-punk band Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and avant-klezmer group Black Ox Orkestar. Moss also has her hands on several other stellar projects, including records by Carla Bozulich’s Evangelista, Vic Chesnutt and BIG|BRAVE, to name but a few. Moss’s most recent venture performing solo work resulted in Pools Of Light, her first solo album due out this spring. Versatile and skilled, her approach to violin, as the label describes, “combines a natural technical fluidity, a recombinant command of folk, classical and modern idioms, and an adventurous exploration of signal-bending and analog effects that uniquely expand the spectrum of the violin as sound source”.
Pools Of Light resonates with themes of world injustices, social and environmental. Moss explains:

“As a solo performer, I feel an alignment with the transportive nature of storytelling tradition. My music is narrative, and I feel it’s subjects are already on everyone’s mind (climate change, refugee crisis, plastic garbage island floating in the sea…). My aim is to create a space where we can reflect on these things together. I prefer not to use too many words to relate; once the ideas are contextualized, conjuring images with sounds and melodies feels just as powerful to me and also more accessible in many ways. I don’t have an agenda, certainly not a solution, just a great sense of empathy and desire to be sharing space and experiences. I believe that having these transporting moments together can be both a balm and a way to receive energy to move forward, to engage.”

The mesmeric and compelling ‘Glaciers I (Pt I)’ is being offered as the first taste from Pools of Light, ahead of its release on May 5th. Listen to it below.