Sam Pluta, feedback televisions

Robert Karpay, cello

Sam Pluta will be performing his feedback televisions, a neural net controlled system which amplifies the internal electronics of vintage tube televisions and feeds them back into the televisions as visuals. Robert Karpay with perform amplified and distorted cello.

On his first two releases as a leader, bassist/composer Shawn Lovato revealed the wide-lens ambition of his compositional voice. His 2017 debut, Cycles of Animation (Skirl), featured an invigorating set of music for quintet that blurred the lines between jazz, chamber music and punk rock. He followed that in 2022 with the even more intricate Microcosms, a suite commissioned by new music ensemble Hotel Elefant that paired that group’s members with a slate of intrepid improvisers.

Lovato scales down his ensemble but not his imaginative scope for his third album, Biotic. Set for release on February 13, 2026 via Endectomorph, Biotic debuts a new trio with Lovato, tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Henry Mermer. While the pared-down context intersects with the legacy of the chordless tenor trio, Lovato reimagines the group as a vehicle for spacious yet rigorous compositions, laser-focused improvisation, and a visceral romanticism born of his formative love of the impassioned fervor of punk rock.