Claire Rousay
Music
American electroacoustic composer Claire Rousay combines cello with ambient field recordings and electronics. Her music focuses on emotions and details from everyday life - voicemails, ambient recordings, stop watches, whispers and conversations - and makes them larger than life.
Her album 'A Softer Focus' (2021) was showered with praise and immediately dominated several year-end lists - Pitchfork praised the record for evoking "powerful nostalgia for moments of quiet reflection and human connection."
Like follow-up 'Everything Perfect Is Already Here' (2022) - full of harp, violin and piano - Rousay wrote 'A Softer Focus' during the lockdown in Texas, where she lives with her girlfriend. In 2019, Rousay outed herself as a trans woman, though she stresses that she does not want to be seen as a "spokesperson" for the trans community.
Rousay opened for alt-country superstar Jeff Tweedy last year. Her beautifully esoteric, occasionally challenging instrumental pieces, are often compared to the minimalist work of Steve Reich or that of meditative composer William Basinski.