Visionary vibraphonist, marimbist and composer Patricia Brennan looks to the stars and the universe for inspiration on her stunning new album Of The Near And Far, out October 24, 2025 via Pyroclastic Records, uses the constellations as the basis for exhilarating compositions blending jazz, classical and alt-rock influences
“…as challenging as it is danceable, [Breaking Stretch recalls] the fantastical constructions of big thinkers such as Henry Threadgill and Steve Lehman as it interweaves dazzling ensemble passages with bracing solos.” – Hank Shteamer, The New York Times
“Folkloric futurism is a trademark for Patricia Brennan, a brilliant vibraphonist and composer rattling along the volatile edge of contemporary chamber music… the core coordinates of [her] music are fixed someplace that hasn’t yet been charted; Brennan and her expeditionary forces make us feel flush with its discovery.” – Nate Chinen, NPR Music
For millennia, humans have gazed up into the night sky and conjured stories from the patterns of the stars. From ancient civilisations tracing images of mythological figures to modern astronomers discovering the past and future of our universe, those vast expanses have allowed us to explore our own place in the cosmos. On her breathtaking new album, Of The Near And Far, the vibraphonist, marimbist and composer Patricia Brennan places her own artistry in that tradition, creating captivating new compositions inspired by the constellations.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the sky and the stars,” Brennan says. “If you really look closely, everything can be connected through geometrical shapes. I became curious as to how I could translate that into music in the same way that I’ve translated numbers into rhythmic structures in the past. This album confirms a wild theory that I had, that I could find symmetry harmonically or melodically by superimposing two symmetrical shapes – one from astronomy and one from music.”
Out October 24, 2025 via Pyroclastic Records, Of The Near And Far is a further expansion of Brennan’s striking compositional vision, following the universal acclaim that greeted her 2024 release, Breaking Stretch. That album was hailed on “best of the year” lists from NPR Music, The New York Times, Bandcamp, JazzTimes, All About Jazz, Stereogum, PopMatters, The Wire and other outlets, earning Album of the Year as well as Vibraphonist of the Year in the DownBeat Critics Poll and taking the top spot on the annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll. She was also named “Mallet Instrument Player of the Year” by the Jazz Journalists Association.
Of The Near And Far marks another audacious evolution for Brennan, whose music combines bold innovation with singular ventures into her own wide-ranging inspirations. Where the rhythm-focused Breaking Stretch incorporated elements of folkloric traditions from her native Mexico along with Afro-Caribbean, funk and salsa sounds, the new album has its roots in Brennan’s classical percussion studies at Philadelphia’s prestigious Curtis Institute of Music and her contemporaneous passion for the adventurous alt-rock of the ‘90s, bands like Radiohead and Soundgarden.
The ten-piece ensemble that Brennan assembled for Of The Near And Far marries the worlds of jazz and new music in varied combinations. Brennan is joined by pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, guitarist Miles Okazaki, bassist Kim Cass and drummer John Hollenbeck, complemented by violinists Josh Modney and Pala Garcia, violist Kyle Armbrust and cellist Michael Nicolas as well as the electronic musician Arktureye, all conducted by Eli Greenhoe. Viewed from one perspective this could be described as a jazz quintet combined with a string quartet, given a modernist electro-acoustic edge by Arktureye and Brennan’s own use of electronics.
But the ways in which Brennan writes for these musicians is much more rich and complex than that would suggest, making for a cohesive and uncategorizable whole. One strain of the music treats the strings traditionally, in the vein of orchestra music by Ravel, Debussy, Brahms and Copland. At the same time, she purposely chose four individual string players rather than a pre-existing string quartet, allowing her to treat them as separate voices as well as a single unit, though the artists she chose shared an extensive history dating back to their days at Juilliard.
Brennan also reached back to her experience playing contemporary percussion pieces by the likes of Cage, Stockhausen or Paul Lansky. The ensemble as a whole can act as a modern chamber ensemble a la Eighth Blackbird, with whom Brennan has collaborated, while the “quintet” can act as a jazz group or as a modified percussion ensemble. She shares history with all of the musicians; Cass is one of her closest collaborators, while she has worked with Okazaki on his own project and recording Miniature America, as well as in bands led by Matt Mitchell and Dan Weiss. She has a longstanding connection with both Courvoisier and Hollenbeck.
If those personal influences represent the near, the music’s genesis is rooted in the far. An avid amateur astronomer, Brennan travels with her own telescope whenever she can escape the light pollution of the city. For Of The Near And Far, she superimposed the circle of fifths over a number of constellations that she viewed in the summertime sky of the Northern hemisphere. Mapping these patterns together, she generated collections of pitches that became the raw material for her compositions.
The pitch collections were simply the starting point for Brennan’s process. From there, she had to determine how to employ the pitches – as a single chord? A scale? A key signature? Individual branches to follow? The emotional content of each piece was further enriched by the mythologies that have grown up around the constellations, and in some cases by their astronomical properties.
“I tried to consider the more esoteric aspects of the constellations as well as the science behind them,” Brennan explains. “I was motivated to include particular constellations by stories that I loved, by constellations that I was drawn to, or by the musical material that I discovered.”
“Andromeda” combines all of these approaches. Brennan decided to treat the six pitches that the constellation suggested as a series of key signatures, proceeding through them in a manner reminiscent of Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.” The composition’s uneasy, turbulent feeling reflects the story of Andromeda, the princess chained to a rock, sacrificed to a sea monster to appease the god Poseidon. Andromeda is also the name of the M31 galaxy, the closest spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way, on a fateful collision course that will bring the two together in 4.5 billion years, hinted at in the chaotic piece’s explosive climax.
A more recently named constellation, “Antlia” reflects the progress from mythologizing to scientific discovery. Named by the French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century, “Antlia” carries the far more pragmatic name of an air pump, which Brennan interpreted by turning the players into components of a machine working through a series of “gear changes,” with the pitches generated combined into a single chord. “Lyra,” on the other hand, was inspired by the doomed love story of Orpheus and Eurydice, while “Aquila” was written in a fugue-like form to approximate the soaring flight of the titular eagle, tasked with carrying Zeus’ thunderbolts. The fluid movement of “Aquarius,” conjured by the vibraphone/guitar melody, evokes the astrological symbol of the Water Bearer.
“It may sound like a cerebral pursuit,” Brennan explains, “but at the end of the day I still follow my instincts and make sure that the melodies I write make sense. I enjoy imposing these limitations or challenges, but the music all comes down to what feels and sounds good to me – what feels organic and natural. I apply those same rules if I’m improvising freely with a group or listening to a Beethoven Symphony.”
The final two pieces broaden the scope of the project. “Citlalli” is the word for “star” in the Nahuatl language of the indigenous Mexican people, and the piece of that name is culled from a series of group improvisations sparked by Brennan’s graphic score. Arktureye then pieced together and processed those improvs in post to craft an immersive assemblage. Brennan composed “When You Stare Into the Abyss” based not on any individual constellation, but on the humbling experience of exploring the awe-inspiring infinitity of the universe that surrounds us.
“This is a way for me to try to make sense of the universe through my own world, which is music,” Brennan concludes. “In trying to bridge the gap between those two aspects I’ve come to realize that we’re connected in some way. We’re all dust and matter that eventually goes back to the universe.”
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photo by Werner Siebert
Patricia Brennan
Vibraphonist, marimbist, improviser and composer Patricia Brennan “has been widely feted as one of the instrument’s newer leaders,” observed The New York City Jazz Record. She was recently named “Mallet Instrument Player of the Year” by the Jazz Journalists Association and was also a nominee for the JJA’s “Up & Coming Musician of the Year” award. Brennan also won the rising star vibraphonist award in DownBeat’s 70th (2022) and 72nd (2024) Critics Poll. Her extensive sidewoman work includes the Grammy-nominated John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, Michael Formanek Ensemble Kolossus, Mary Halvorson’s Amaryllis and Arturo O’Farrill’s Grammy-winning Afro Latin Jazz Big Band, amongst other groups and collectives. Brennan’s own projects include the solo project Maquishiti; MOCH, a collaborative duo with percussionist, drummer and turntablist Noel Brennan (Arktureye); More Touch, a quartet with Mauricio Herrera on percussion, Marcus Gilmore on drums and Kim Cass on bass; the Patricia Brennan Septet, featuring the rhythm section from More Touch supplemented by Adam O’Farrill on trumpet, Jon Irabagon on alto and sopranino saxophones and Mark Shim on tenor saxophone; and Talamanti, a piano and mallet percussion duo with the extraordinary pianist Sylvie Courvoisier. Brennan’s most recent album, Breaking Stretch, garnered widespread acclaim, earning spots on multiple Best Jazz Albums of 2024 lists including The New York Times Top 10 and NPR’s 50 Best Albums of 2024.
Pyroclastic Records
Pianist-composer Kris Davis founded Pyroclastic Records in 2016. By supporting artists in the dissemination of their work, Pyroclastic empowers emerging and established artists to continue challenging conventional genre-labeling within their fields. Pyroclastic also seeks to galvanize and grow a creative community, providing opportunities, supporting diversity and expanding the audience for noncommercial art. Its albums often feature artwork by prominent visual artists—Ellsworth Kelly, Julian Charriére, Dike Blair, Raymond Pettibon, Sharon Core and Gabriel de la Mora among recent examples.
2025 Pyroclastic projects include albums from Ingrid Laubrock, Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson, Ned Rothenberg, Trio of Bloom (Craig Taborn, Nels Cline, Marcus Gilmore), and Patricia Brennan.
Album Release Concerts: • November 1 at Berlin Jazz Festival • December 1 at Roulette, NYC
Patricia Brennan – Of The Near And Far
Pyroclastic Records – PR 43 – Recorded Dec. 8-9, 2024
Release date October 24, 2025
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