permutations051718: Ghost Ensemble: We Who Walk Again

Permutations presents New York’s Ghost Ensemble in their West Coast debut, with an evening of music featuring works by Pauline Oliveros, Ben Richter, Sky Macklay, Andrew C. Smith, and Liisa Hirsch.
Ghost Ensemble is dedicated to new musical perspectives that explore the experience of listening, creating sonic spaces that shift our attention, perception, or experience of time. Through long-term collaborations with composers, Ghost develops new works that share a meditative practice or an inclination toward altered consciousness, metaphysical exploration, and the physicality of sound. Taking the Deep Listening practice of Pauline Oliveros as a point of departure, the ensemble begins with her question, “Can you imagine listening beyond the edge of your own imagination?” By expanding our horizons and perceptions and encouraging immersive experience, this music demonstrates its potential as a real healing force.
Ghost Ensemble’s newly released debut LP, We Who Walk Again, introduces the core of the ensemble’s repertoire and the diverse practices united by its approach. The title invokes the Icelandic legend of the draugr, or aptrgangr, a ghostly being with the power to morph into many shapes, gaze into the future, and enter dreams to bestow gifts on the living — something like a collection of the magical properties, perhaps, of music.