Square Peg Round Hole
with Angélica Negrón
6pm doors • 7pm show
About
Percussion trio Square Peg Round Hole bring their intricate, lyrical music to the National Sawdust stage for their first headlining show.
Playing everything from post-rock to contemporary classical, Square Peg Round Hole bring their minimalist, ambient music to the stage for one night only, in celebration of their new album release on National Sawdust Tracks. Debuting a new batch of music that simmers with irresistible electroacoustic textures, Square Peg Round Hole show off their eclectic combination of technical precision and indie rock groove.
Through drums, vibraphone, samples, analog synths, metal pipes, glass bottles, and even children’s toys, Square Peg Round Hole will create a sonic landscape that surprises and delights at every turn.
Tickets
The Artists
Philadelphia’s Square Peg Round Hole is an instrumental percussion-based trio described by NPR’s Bob Boilen as a “creative adventure”. Evan Chapman, Sean M. Gill, and Carlos Pacheco-Perez utilize drum kits, vibraphone, samples, found objects, synths, and vintage analog keyboards to create music that draws on elements of post-rock, electronic, ambient, and contemporary classical genres. The music is expansive, intricately textured, and dynamic, but the group’s knack for hooks and melodic structure provides a soulful center.
Square Peg’s studio albums illuminate the group’s capacity for exploration. The second record, Juniper, released in 2016 on Spartan Records, garnered the band national attention. The introspective album was composed in rural Maryland and remote Wisconsin, and was recorded almost entirely live, in full takes. The creative process around Juniper established a tighter sound, with more clearly defined roles, and greater confidence.
Square Peg’s third LP, Branches, stands as a more collaborative and outward-looking artistic endeavor. The album was recorded in Nashville with producer and drumming legend Darren King (MuteMath, Kanye West, Sucré). Living in King’s attic and immersing themselves in his studio opened the group up to new techniques, and pushed them into unexpected sonic terrain. The performances are also more collaborative, with Branches featuring Variant Six (members of Grammy-award winning vocal ensemble The Crossing) and Brooklyn-based powerhouse pop-duo Gracie & Rachel (fresh off of tours with Ani DiFranco and San Fermin).
Square Peg Round Hole formed in 2011, when the members met while studying at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. The band has performed at venues and festivals across the US, sharing bills with The Album Leaf, The Bad Plus, Kneebody, and Dawn of Midi, and touring the East Coast with Son Lux’s Ian Chang. Collaborators have included Sō Percussion, Gracie & Rachel, and Variant Six.
Puerto Rican-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón writes music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys, and electronics, as well as chamber ensembles and orchestras. Her music has been described as “wistfully idiosyncratic and contemplative” and “mesmerizing and affecting”, while the New York Times has noted her “capacity to surprise” and “quirky approach to scoring”. Angélica has been commissioned by Bang on a Can All-Stars, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, A Far Cry, Carnegie Hall, Sō Percussion, and the American Composers Orchestra, among others. Angélica is the composer-in-residence for the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra for their 2018-2019 season. She is currently an Artist-in-Residence at National Sawdust, completing Chimera, a lip-synch, drag queen opera focused on the intricacies and complexities of identity, as well as the first composer-in-residence at the New York Botanical Garden, working on an interactive choral piece which will give voice to the natural world at the Thain Family Forest.
