Mattie Barbier 


is this the land i wish death to find me


Is This The Land I Wish Death To Find Me presents two extended works by Los Angeles based trombonist and composer Mattie Barbier. The album continues Barbier’s long-term research into resonance, spatial acoustics, and the physical behaviour of sound.

Across the two pieces, the trombone becomes both a source and a trigger, activating environments that respond with their own material voice.


Track 1: Is This The Land I Wish Death To Find Me (Solo). 

Recorded on 26 June 2024 at the Tank Center for Sonic Arts in Rangely, Colorado. The piece is based on a slowly shifting set of ascending just minor thirds: 6:5, 7:6, and 13:11. Magnetic geophones were attached directly to the Tank’s exterior steel surface,

capturing the performance through the resonance of the structure itself. The recording draws on archeacoustics research into how spaces hold traces of previous activity and how resonance interacts with material over time. In this work the trombone activates the Tank and the Tank becomes the primary sonic material.


Track 2: Teeth of the Second Range

Recorded in Culver City, California in December 2024 and January 2025. Alto, tenor, and bass trombones were recorded and re-recorded to build a choir of unplayed or phantom brass instruments. The piece extends Barbier’s interest in sonifying spaces, referencing iterative room resonance processes such as I Am Sitting in a Room. The resulting work is 

constructed from the acoustic reality of the instruments when allowed to resonate without human input. The title draws from Veit Erlmann’s book, Reason and Resonance, and was Corti’s original name for the later named Organ of Corti.



Across both recordings, Barbier examines the relationship between instruments and the environments they inhabit. Space becomes transducer, collaborator, and archive. By foregrounding physical resonance rather than traditional breath articulation, Barbier’s work asks how instruments sound when freed from performance convention. The recordings emphasize vibration as a fundamental condition of matter and hearing. They propose listening as a method for revealing latent acoustics and structural memory. What emerges is not a portrait of the trombone alone but a study in how sound shapes and is shaped by the places where it occurs.








Track 1. is this the land i wish death to find me (solo)


Track 2. Teeth of the Second Range




Format: Digital and CD

Release Date: 12 December 2025

Label: Discreet Archive (Wales, UK)

Genre: Experimental, Sound Art, Drone, Ambient


Mattie Barbier is an LA based musician and sonic researcher working with experimental intonation, latent acoustic worlds, and the physical processes of low brass instruments. Their work has been praised as inventive and virtuosic by the LA Times, The Wire, and The New Yorker. Barbier collaborates closely with composers and sound artists including Weston Olencki, Ellen Arkbro, Clara Iannotta, Sarah Davachi, Carol Robinson/Éliane Radigue, Scott Walker, and Jacob Kirkegaard. They are a member of RAGE Thormbones, wildUp, echoi, and Diapason, and teach at CalArts. Their performances and commissions span international institutions and festivals, with recordings on Sofa Music, Dinzu Artifacts, Carrier, Ideologic Organ, and Discreet Archive. 


RIYL: Luka Aron, Alvin Lucier, Sarah Davachi, Éliane Radigue,  Ellen Fullman. 



wave files, one sheet, and additional materials may be found and downloaded here.


 
Mattie Barbier is an LA based musician and sonic researcher focused on experimental intonation, latent acoustic worlds, and the physical processes of their instrument. Their playing has been described by the LA Times as being "of intense, brilliant, virtuosic growling that gave the striking impression that Barbier was dismantling the instrument while playing it," by the Wire as “exploring the nooks of instrumental tone far beyond the reach of most mortals,” and by the New Yorker as being a "diabolically inventive trombonist-composer."Mattie engages in collaborative relationships with a range of musicians including Weston Olencki, Ellen Arkbro, Clara Iannotta, Sarah Davachi, Michelle Lou,  Wolfgang von Schweinitz,  Jacob Kirkegaard, and Katherine Young. As an interpreter they have given premieres by and collaborated with a broad spectrum of sonic practitioners including George Lewis, Éliane Radigue/Carol Robinson, Catherine Lamb, Liza Lim, Lester St. Louis, Kevin Drumm, Kaori Suzuki, Raven Chacon,  Nate Wooley, and British pop maverick, Scott Walker. Additionally, they have performed as an orchestral soloist with the Helsinki Philharmonic, SWR Symphonieorchester, and WildUp.


Mattie is a member of RAGE Thormbones, wildUp, echoi, Diapason, and is an active soloist and improviser on low brass instruments and bagpipes. They teach at CalArts.

Mattie has presented and created work with and for the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Getty Center and Villa, Monday Evening Concerts, Lampo, San Francisco Exploratorium, Indexical, Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series, Bemis Center's LOW END, Roulette Intermedium, NyMusikk, RedCat, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Apparat, Factory Seconds Brass Trio, and Issue Project Room as well as in collaboration with holographer Tristan Duke.  They have made a wide array festival appearances including: Borealis (NO), IMD Darmstadt (DE), Donaueschinger (DE), Musica Nova Helsinki (FI),  Maerzmusik (DE), Bludenz Tage zeitgemäßer (AT), Spor (DK), Chicago’s Frequency Festival, Dartington International Summer School (UK),  Kalv Festival (SE), JAMA (SK), Minu (DK),  and the Ojai Music Festival. Mattie has held  guest residencies at a broad spectrum of institutions, including Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, UCSD, and the University of Chicago. Various recording projects as a soloist and ensemble member have been released on Sofa Music, Dinzu Artifacts, Carrier, Tripticks, Populist, Mode, Hat Hut, Innova, Late Music, Faux Amis, Ideologic Organ, New Focus, Domino, New Amsterdam, and Kairos Records.