At a recent performance at the Whitney Biennial, Sammi Katzmann played a run on saxophone while Jenna Pascale bore down on her cello with such weight and precision it seemed as if the bow were forged from titanium. They had been darting close and drifting apart for a while, then suddenly happened upon a perfect harmony. It sounded like beauty and it sounded like terror. The two musicians looked at one another and began to cry. They had communicated telepathically and for a moment became one: KatzPascale.
The duo formed two years ago, shortly after meeting while working as hired guns for bands across New York, from Porches to Sunflower Bean, as well as backing a live performance by Michael Imperioli and recording a couple of songs for the Terrifier 3 soundtrack. They bonded over a shared love of Olivier Messiaen, 2hollis, and Addison Rae. At the time, Pascale and Katzmann were trying to find their footing in New York City’s music scene while promoting themselves on TikTok with hashtags like #indieartist and #songofthesummer.
No score yet, be the first to add.
Both musicians came up through classical training from a young age. Katzmann began piano lessons at five, while Pascale, daughter of the director of the South Pasadena Strings Program, was just two when she started playing violin, five when she switched to cello. At six, she played Carnegie Hall. It’s been three years since she gave up classical cello for “absolutely any other genre.” KatzPascale’s entire modus operandi now is to liberate the process.
They refer to their music as “neo-classical-post-punk-anti-pop,” which sounds facetious, but there’s something in all those modifiers and adversatives. It’s ambient and experimental and a bit like a Nicholas Britell film score, but with an anti-institutional streak. Theirs is chamber music that is socially divorced from the classical music world.
Their debut EP, ELEGY, runs on the euphoria of quitting school, and does what any debut should: It gathers every idea and feeling they’ve ever had into a single work. It is ostensibly a record about memory and relief, and the whole of their lives sounds concentrated within it: childhood recitals, lonely practice rooms, post-college ennui, friendships, breakfasts, love. ELEGY transforms all of it into something emotionally direct and simply pleasure-inducing.
Pascale’s cello generally swoops and sustains while Katzmann’s saxophone jitters in search. Playing together, they are two lost wanderers shining torchlights down a tunnel, with no destination in mind other than back to each other. On “SINK WHERE YOU SLEEP,” their instruments zoom around each like frantic bugs trapped in an upturned glass. The saxophone sounds tangled in lament and inquisition before skronking what sounds like an emergency signal. It’s sexy and it’s scary and it keeps the Roadhouse’s red lights running.
Pascale’s vocals float in on “AN ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS,” operatic and glass-like, recalling her grandmother, who was also an opera singer. The closest recent comparison might be Maria BC. She sounds like she’s calling to Katzmann, flickering and throwing light around the swinging lampshade of the saxophone. Pascale’s playing is deeply measured, the years of classical training paying off, with not a hint of scratchiness to be heard. Together, they sound electrically activated, as though their nerves are starting to work for the first time.
The greatest moment on the EP is Katzmann’s all-timer of an ostinato on “SPILL YOUR TIME.” Katzmann plays it with a throaty voice, a little like Colin Stetson, the physicality irreducible. Pascale accompanies her with deceptively simple down-bows and up-bows, bearing the technical difficulty lightly, as though that’s just the shape and movements her hands happen to take.
During an immersive 30 minutes, ELEGY achieves something many postclassical records strive for but rarely attain. It is unmistakably chamber music in its concentration and instrumental discipline, yet its six pieces communicate with the immediacy of a song, particularly on “HOLD ME (SLOWLY),” with its simple guitar riff and clear vocals, which even lean towards pop. Together, Pascale and Katzmann dart after heart-sinking feelings, shooting their arrows and nailing life to the wall.
