petra – filament

released on CD and digital March 22nd, 2019

 filament marks the first solo release by petra, the “homegrown voice-electronics” project of Kristina Warren (Providence, Rhode Island). Composed, recorded, and produced over nearly three years starting in 2016, filament is a line, an idea, something continuous, something made, a journey. Voice speaks via electricity. petrabuilt the machine and sewed herself into it.

filament is in part a distillation of Warren’s years of voice and electronics performance, both solo and with collaborators including Ailís Ni Ríain, Amy Brandon, Kimberly Sutton, Rachel Devorah, and Theresa Wong. Across the 2010s and especially during her PhD work at the University of Virginia, Warren got sick of conventional notions of vocal beauty and listenability, which are gendered and limiting. Now on the eve of a new decade, filament aims to make space for new voices, for listening and empowerment. petra’s scream dissolves into voltage, an old ritual that won’t stop.

petra in her own words! Watch Chyme Time Episode #3!