Ben Zucker

Ben Zucker is an experimental musician interested in creating environments for speculation through sound, involving ever-changing hybrids of composition, improvisation, and multimedia. He performs on brass, percussion, voice, keyboards, and electronics. His work has been featured in records, plays, films, and new music festivals across the world. Ben actively works in various music scenes across the US and UK, in addition to serving as a teacher, organizer, and board member of New Music Chicago.

Others on Ben:

Better Know A Weisslich: Ben Zucker 

(on neither/n/nor/n and conceptual practices)

Bedrock Beat on Confluere

("The music feels like a livelier Morton Feldmon, however, Zucker is creating his own sound...")

Decoder on Confluere

("With shades of the seminal Bitches Brew and modern avant-gardists like Tomasz Stanko, Zucker’s work is a testament to the power of restraint and arrangement.)

Bird Is The Worm on Confluere

("...there’s an immensely contemplative nature to this music, and that quality alone is produced with sufficient strength to result in music made perfect for quiet moments in quiet rooms.)

Free Jazz Blog on Confluere 

("Its slowness, the eery interaction and the shifting focus between foreground and background sounds give the feeling of foreboding and dread.)

Resonance FM--Verzcast #2 with Ben Zucker

No Pigeonholes EXP

(Great experimental music radio in Sonoma Country, CA, has featured both Confluere and o ur gab.)

Touching Extremes on Confluere

("...you’re going to appreciate the warm embrace of its unassuming truthfulness.")

ATTN Magazine on o ur gab

("Zucker’s music speaks – or rather, doesn’t – to the power of permitting the mouth to essentially adopt a state of autonomy from the body and mind, unmoored from the obligation to communicate to anyone, creator included.")

Twisted Soul on trlksco (worksworn)

("...the result is a spacious fusion of jazz and electronics that slowly unfurls with a measured tempo full of grace and elegance.")

​IMPOSE Magazine on Guharmatar (worksworn)

("The master of improvisation...can relay his emotions clearly, into a musical reality he shapes surreal in the track...”)

​Tome To The Weather Machine on Iridescent Lines of Flight

("...these flights of stereo-panning chordal clusters, 4-on-the-floor beat invite us into a fully formed musical world where Zucker's ideas play themselves out in rich, pulsing expansions and heavily edited fragments stitched togehter to make one of my favorite stand alone singles I've heard all year.")

​Sequenza21 on neither/n/nor/n, performed by the Southland Ensemble

("Neither /N/Nor/N is simple in both materials and structure, yet it proved to be the perfect canvas upon which sonic illusions could be released by the imagination.")

We Need No Swords on intra.incarn

("Buzzing nano-swarms morph into keening elephantine choirs, then into glowering, vaporous thunder, and so on in constant, slo-mo evolution...

Key to this is the unhurried, naturalistic way in which Zucker shepherds his army of ghost players through these transitions.")

OSC on intra.incarn

("...the piece is a haunting trumpet solo, sculpted into an 36 minute ambient gem.")

Commodity Fetish Records on intra.incarn

("...like the Rite Of Spring slowed down to absolute zero and framing a heavenly progression of events.")

Rummage Radio on episolvity

("Dense structures moving through sharp and piercing sonic planes...")

Rummage Radio on anedition

(A full-length interview and album preview!)

Avant Music News on anedition

(Honorable Mention, Best of the First Half of 2020)

The Composer's Toolbox on Clarke Distributions

(One of 'Three Composers You Have To Listen To': "...reactive and involved, which is really refreshing and welcome.")

​

Take Effect on Fifth Season

("Certainly an album worth seeking out if you’re a fan of improvisational jazz, Zucker and company put a very artistic touch on the listen that defies classification, transcends time and fascinates from beginning to end.")

Contemporary Fusion Reviews on Fifth Season

("Excellent experimental jazz...most highly recommended")

The JW Vibe on Fifth Season

("remarkable experimental/improvisational ensemble debut...creating fascinating off the beaten path musical conversations")

Interview on JazzBluesNews

"Currently" feature on Deepest Currents

Ben on Others:

Coin-Operated Boys: Amanda Palmer’s Grand Theft Orchestra & The Social Economy Of Music

(Published in Pyxis, Wesleyan's humanities journal, on Theatre Is Evil and fandom as an alternative economics.)

Music Between Sounds: Relational Aesthetics And The Poetics Of Wandelweiser

(My undergrad thesis, using Nicolas Bourriaud, amongst others, to talk about Manfred Werder's 2005/1, amongst others.)

Review of the Hot Orange Big Band & Richard Smith at Pizza Express Jazz Club for the London Jazz News 

("Some may deride Smith’s brand of “smooth jazz”, but in this context it was clear that the style can be as nuanced as those adored by purists. He and Hot Orange are a symbiotic match, and bring out the best in each other.")

Review of the 2015 London Contemporary Music Festival for TEMPO Journal

("The concerts on Sunday and Tuesday lasted over three hours; they weren't easy, but they prompted salient experiences...")