Chanrmaine Lee, High Zero festival veteran, is coming back to Baltimore to present her solo electronic music. Local support TBA.
Charmaine Lee (b. 1991) is an Australian vocalist based in New York whose music spans voice, feedback, and live processing. Her music has been recognized as “extraordinary” by The New Yorker, with additional coverage in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wire Magazine. As a composer and performer, she has collaborated with Grammy-winning and -nominated ensembles such as Kronos Quartet and Spektral Quartet, and has performed at institutions including Lincoln Center, MoMA, and SFJAZZ.
Long-standing collaborators include Conrad Tao, Eric Wubbels, and MacArthur Fellow Ikue Mori. Lee regularly lectures on building personal language and creative agency at institutions including Columbia, Princeton, Stanford, and The New School. She also serves on the Artistic Advisory Council at ISSUE Project Room and is the founder of Kou Records, a new label devoted to artists developing singular musical vocabularies. She is a 2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, a 2024 Emergent Ventures winner, and has held fellowships at ISSUE Project Room and Roulette Intermedium.
Fall 2025: Tulpa Release & 50-State U.S. Tour
In August 2025, Lee will release Tulpa, her most expansive studio solo album to date—produced and mixed by Randall Dunn—on 12” vinyl via Kou Records. The label, founded by Lee in 2024, draws its name from the Chinese word for “mouth” and is dedicated to artists exploring singular musical languages. Drawing inspiration from classic rock and Motown-era records, Kou takes an active role in curating, producing, and recording each release from the ground up—reviving a model of deep artistic involvement that’s rare in today’s left-field music landscape. Each project is built collaboratively with the artist, with a focus on sonic fidelity, conceptual clarity, and intentional design. Upcoming 2025 releases include new works by Eyvind Kang, Jessika Kenney, and Chloe Kim.In August, Lee will embark on a self-organized 50-state, 65-show, 95-day solo performance tour (Aug–Nov 2025) as an audacious unmapping of the American landscape. Designed to unfold across DIY venues, universities, museums, and natural sites, the tour blurs traditional borders between art spaces and lived geographies. As a first-generation immigrant from Australia/Hong Kong, Lee frames the project as both a musical undertaking and a form of ground-truthing: a way to learn the country from the ground up, and to build connection with audiences and communities who share a love of adventurous sound.
www.charmainelee.com | www.instagram.com/charmainelee | www.kourecords.com
Executive Summary Live
Resurecting Executive Summary, the streaming show from the ashes of the darkest days of the pandemic and presenting ultra short sets (5 minutes) rendered in living flesh and blood. In rapid succession we’ll have four short, LIVE IN PERSON sets from Tom Borax, CK Barlow and Sam Burt, Empathic Window and Jeff Carey. GRAVITAS.
