Folkadelphia Session: Sondra Sun-Odeon (with Orion Rigel Dommisse) - WXPN | Vinyl At Heart
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We fell in love with the sound that Brooklyn-based (though perpetually touring) experimental songwriter Sondra Sun-Odeon was making back in the Spring of 2013 and we’ve been hooked ever since. Sun-Odeon, formerly of psych rock group Silver Summit, was fresh off the release of her new solo work Aetherea when we worked with her on a show in Philadelphia at the Studio 34 space. At that concert, we recorded her set and those song eventually became Folkadelphia’s first official release – it’s available as a pay-what-you-will download and limited poster design. Seeking more ways to collaborate, we partnered with Fire Museum Presents on her most recent Philadelphia concert this past November at the now-defunct Highwire Gallery for a bill that also featured Orion Rigel Dommisse and Fursaxa, two songwriters that also push at the boundaries of traditional songwriting and music making. It was on this visit to the City of Brotherly Love that Sun-Odeon recorded this Folkadelphia Session at the WXPN Performance Studio.

Sondra Sun-Odeon’s sound is not easy to pin down, but the aptly-titled name of her album Aetherea points you in the right direction. The music is of the air, the sky, the limits of existence and consciousness – it is not necessarily the music of the earth, the dirt, the basic and base emotions. However to describe the sound as elemental would be germane. Distant, but ever presently glowing like a beacon in the fog of reverb and echo, Sun-Odeon’s voice leads the listener through a dynamic soundscape. Silken strands of guitar lines and melancholy cello can quickly transform into dark, swirling clouds of noise, distortion, and powerful percussion. Sun-Odeon is a mercurial force of nature, drawing upon her many talents to create an immersive experience.

While we are a folk radio show, in vague terms, we find that it is important to seek out musicians, storytellers, and artists that are breaking beyond the boundaries of their disciplines to create art that is unique and imaginative, rather than rehashing what has already been done. Sondra Sun-Odeon takes the classification of “singer-songwriter” and completely stretches, skewers, and severs our safe definition of what that means. Let her guide you.

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