HZL Biography

HZL is Tim Albro and Jesse Kudler.  The two have played together since becoming friends at Wesleyan University around the turn of the century, but their duo was founded in 2005, after the two became close neighbors.  A schedule of record-listening sessions and concert attendance developed into a focused musical collaboration as proximity and available practice space allowed HZL to work intensively on developing a duo language.  Jesse at first used his set-up of table-top guitar, synthesizer, contact mic, various objects and devices, and sundry electronics, while Tim began working with a unique electronics rig that incorporated radio and an archtop guitar prepared with surface-mounted speakers inside its body.  Over time, the duo’s tools have evolved along with its aesthetic.

Small rooms and intensive listening led to the configuration of a distinctive approach to performance, making ample use of resonances, small sounds, and an awareness of the spaces containing them.  As the project has developed, the main focus of HZL has become sonic environments, both in terms of local sound and the more subjective sense of place.  To this end, the duo employs field recordings, radios tuned to local stations, recordings of the audience, open microphones, and feedback shaped by the performance space.  In a very real sense, the group’s music is a collaboration with the space in which it performs.  Eschewing a conventional stage or performance setup, Albro and Kudler place themselves and their equipment in the center of the room, with the audience around them in a circle and speakers placed in the corners of the space.  Thus sound is not pushed from performers on to audience but is projected outwards from the extremes in towards the audience and finally the performers.

Both Kudler and Albro also maintain active schedules of improvisation sessions with other local musicians. 

Press:

Read an interview with HZL from the Philadelphia Metro here.

Review of "Ayes" at bagatellen.com here.  ("six beautifully restrained, subtly rich improvisations")

Individual Information:

Kudler:
jessekudler.com
myspace.com/jessekudler
http://jessekudler.com/bio.html

Albro:
http://www.myspace.com/timalbro



[photo: Matthew Snyder]



[photo: Matthew Snyder]



[photo: stranger at Niagara Falls]



[photo: Jason Talbot]



[photo: Ian Fraser]



[photo: Michael Muniak]