Will Graefe and Michael Haldeman
Black Birch Recording Studio
6452 Greene St.
Philadelphia
May 3, 2025
This past Sunday I attended the inaugural concert event at a space you might not have heard about yet. That’s because it’s not a performance venue at all.
Black Birch Recording, a studio in Mt. Airy owned and operated by the brothers Christopher and Jeremy McDonald, was only completed a couple months ago. (Full disclosure, I’ve already participated in a few recording sessions there.) The space is located on the top floor of the Circus Arts campus, and it’s as beautiful to look at as it is acoustically sound. There are few things I love more than seeing a show in a non-traditional venue space, but of course you can run into less-than-ideal sound conditions in those – whether or not you choose to embrace that is up to you – but that was a total non-issue at Black Birch. Even better, the musicians involved, guitarists Michael Haldeman and Will Graefe, were perfectly suited for the environment and the moment.
“There’s no correlation between what I’m looking at and what I’m hearing.” That’s how it feels to watch Michael Haldeman perform an improvised guitar set. Before he began, he introduced himself and told us he would be improvising for about thirty minutes. What followed was all over the map stylistically and sonically; Haldeman utilized an array of effects pedals as well as his Ableton rig, at one point even triggering an unidentified set of samples with his guitar to delirious effect. This was less a solo guitar performance than a marvelous display of musicality and improvisational (not to mention technological) ingenuity, with the seven-string electric guitar acting as the controller. It was striking how little of what we heard sounded like “guitar music” — much of the time the instrument was transformed into a synthesizer, other times into a sound design tool. If you closed your eyes, you’d have never known what was happening. The performance reminded me, in its more settled passages, of contemporary visionaries like ML Buch and Astrid Sonne. But above all, Joni Mitchell’s phrase regarding “chords of inquiry” resounded. It was all deeply felt, and while technically impressive, curiously unshowy; sounds and rhythms were explored in an unforced way, consistently surprising and engaging. Through three windows on the wall behind Haldeman, we watched the sun set and a storm begin, lightning flashing. I couldn’t imagine a more fitting accompaniment.
Alternately, Will Graefe’s performance was, though just as musically adventurous, a little more traditional. Graefe performed on a beautiful old acoustic guitar, which was also running through effects pedals, though they were utilized subtly to color the sound, not outright mangle it. Graefe performed pieces from his new double LP, COMPOSITIONS FOR GUITAR VOL. 1 and 2, and as the title suggests, this could more appropriately be described as guitar music. (He, wisely, mostly eschewed the LP set’s more Haldeman-esque electric material, framing the show as a study in contrast.) Yet in terms of range and power, Graefe’s set was staggering. He switched between rolling fingerstyle blues tunes in CGCGCE tuning — which really recalled old-time banjo at times, to my utter delight — to pieces featuring harp-like melodies cascading across fretted and open strings. (For a detailed explanation of the technique at play, peep Bill Frisell’s essay in John Zorn’s Arcana. It's an essential read for any guitarist!) Several compositions utilized string-dampening foam — “from an air conditioner,” he told me after the show — beautifully highlighting the rhythmic finesse of Graefe’s picking. I thought of everyone from William Ackerman and Sandy Bull to Mississippi John Hurt and Béla Bartók. Graefe sang wonderfully as well, for exactly one song, a faithful cover of the Jeff Tweedy deep cut “Not For The Season” (or “Laminated Cat” if you’re a Loose Fur head).
The performance ended with Haldeman joining Graefe for a jazz-tinged composition, featuring ambiguous suspended chords and quartal harmonies moving in strange, irregular intervals; fans of The Doober would be delighted. It was a fitting close to the night, not summarizing what came before but continuing to push forward, proving these two musicians are as compatible as they are distinct. You left feeling like you’d seen almost everything a guitar is capable of in just a few short hours. As a guitarist myself, it was inspiring.
So many of the records we listen to are artificial representations of a performance, edited to unnatural perfection; we’ve reached a point where many sounds that were previously only achievable through methodical studio production are now at the disposal of improvising musicians, conjured in real time. It was revelatory to see and hear these two gifted guitarists in such an unmediated environment.
The show was RSVP-only and capacity was very limited — I would advise strongly against missing whatever Black Birch presents next.
