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MUSICIAN, ARTIST, COMPOSER, KUZU DJ

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About Sarah Ruth

Sarah Ruth is a diverse musician and artist – a multi-instrumentalist, she employs hammered dulcimer, harmonium, electroacoustic sound art, and extended vocal techniques. She performs frequently both solo and with multiple bands and improvisational ensembles in the North Texas area. She is a University of North Texas graduate where she focused on vocal studies and electroacoustic composition. She has also studied with Meredith Monk and members of her vocal ensemble. She enjoys varied collaborations and has worked as a sound artist for art and photography installations and an accompanist for modern dance. She has performed with Damon Smith, Tatsuya Nakatani, Jaap Blonk, Liz Tonne, Sarah Gamblin, Rosemary Candelario, Susan kae Grant, Lisa Cameron, Tom Carter, and Aaron Gonzalez, to list a few. She tours nationally and her recent albums have been released on Sawyer Spaces, Obsolete Media Objects, Balance Point Acoustics, Pour le Corps Music, and Linda Hand. Sarah co-curates the Molten Plains series and festival with Ernesto Montiel in Denton. She also hosts a radio program called Tiger D on KUZU LP broadcasting in Denton at 92.9 FM and streaming online at kuzu.fm, playing music and often featuring guest musicians to curate and discuss their playlists. She recently had a chapter titled “Community Building Through Collaboration,” published in Routledge‘s Art as Social Practice: Technologies for Change.

Listen

Fellowship of the Arid Plain

(2023) released on Sawyer Spaces

The Shape of Blood to Come

(2018) Released on Obsolete Media Objects

Words on the Wind

(2015) Released on Pour le Corps Records

cuatro estaciones

(2022)

God Made My Soul an Ornament

(2021) Released on Balance Point Acoustics

Ben Patterson Live in Texas

(2022)

Skateboard Guitar at RGRS (Live)

(2021)

Far From the Silvery Light | TSTWMTC

(2016) Released on Tofu Carnage Records

Muscular Prose

(2018) Released on Independent Woman Records

by Aaron Gonzalez, Sarah Ruth Alexander, Tom Carter

I.W.R 028 – Edition of 30 in screen printed sleeves with xerox inserts. 10″ White opal plastic lathe

Bitches Set Traps and Guests

(2021)

Sexist Instruments | Bitches Set Traps

(2020)

Alexander / Gonzalez / Montiel

(2020)

Perfect Solution | BSPC

(2020) Released on Linda Hand

Every Problem a Rose | BSPC

(2019) Released on Linda Hand

BS Pain Control

(2018) Released on Collective Brand Movement

We Sing the Body Electric

(2019)

A Litany of Feline Meditations

(2018) Released on Pour le Corps Records

Painful is Silence | Asukubus

(2017)

Asukubus

(2017)

Casio Choir | Royal Academia

(2018)

divination :: ritual | frejyalune

(2017)

Cerulean Giallo

(2014)

Day Wants Empty | Violent Squid

(2014)

Events Calendar

Past Events

Past Events

Photos

Skateboard Guitar

Skateboard Guitar

Photo: Stephen Lucas

TStWMTC Album Release Show @ Ochre House

TStWMTC Album Release Show @ Ochre House

Photo: Chadwick Witherspoon

@Load-In

@Load-In

Photo: Michael Briggs

Improv Lottery @Texas Theatre

Improv Lottery @Texas Theatre

Photo: Chris Trent Billings

@ Crown & Harp

@ Crown & Harp

Photo: Brent Elrod

Violent Squid @ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios

Violent Squid @ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios

Photo: Alisa Levy

Veil

Veil

Photo: Jasmyne Rose

Smooth Criminal 2

Smooth Criminal 2

Photo: Komal Powell

Spiderweb Salon @ Dan’s Silverleaf

Spiderweb Salon @ Dan’s Silverleaf

Photo: Geoffrey Ussery

@ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios

@ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios

Photo: Andi Harman

@ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios

@ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios

Photo: Michael Briggs

TStWMTC @ Spinster Records

TStWMTC @ Spinster Records

Photo: Gary N. Audirsch

@ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios

@ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios

Photo: Andi Harman

Spiderweb Salon @ J&Js Pizza

Spiderweb Salon @ J&Js Pizza

Photo: Courtney Marie

Harmonium

Harmonium

Photo: Brent Frishman

Smooth Criminal 1

Smooth Criminal 1

Photo: Komal Powell

Cerulean Giallo @ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios

Cerulean Giallo @ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios

Photo: Andi Harman

Projects

I perform and record with a variety of other performers and settings.

noirgaze | romantic desolation across barren fields of forgotten skies

They Say the Wind Made Them Crazy

BS Pain Control

Experimental Noise Opera Dorks

with Brian Nothin, César Velasco, and Cody Cantu

Photo: Michael Briggs

BS Pain Control

Bitches Set Traps

exploring current events, feminism, misogyny, and performance taboos, in theatrical and comedic performances

with Elizabeth McNutt, and Kourtney Newton

Photo: Stephen Lucas

Bitches Set Traps

Spiderweb Salon - Sarah

North Texas based collective of artists, writers, musicians, dancers, makers, bakers, and dreamers

Photo: Leah Jones

Spiderweb Salon

Tiger D

a radio show on KUZU 92.9FM, Denton TX. Tiger D is hyperchaos radio.

continuing the legacy of a show started by Sarah and Nevada Hill on 1670AM

Photo: Peter Salisbury

Tiger D

0% Royal.
0% Academy.
100% Cordophonic.

with Alfonso Callejas and Patrick Michot

Photo: Stephen Lucas

Royal Academia Cordofonica

dark experimentation in primal scream therapy.

with Wyatt Rosser, Hannah Weir, Aaron Gonzalez, Stefan Gonzalez

Photo: Henna Chou

ASUKUBUS


sounds for falling into the gravity well of a rogue planet just past the rim of observable space

with Elise Frejyalune, Hella Scott, Karl J Roehling, Sam Friedland

Frejyalune

An improv collective that looks like an LSD vision from late-era Beatles’ dreamspace.

with a large, ever-revolving cast of musicians

Photo: Alisa Levy

Violent Squid

Press

Bandcamp Daily

THE BEST FIELD RECORDINGS ON BANDCAMP: NOVEMBER 2023

The empty prairie on the cover of Sarah Ruth’s Fellowship of the Arid Plain does not suggest a riot of sound. Yet, in these recordings from the Alexander Home Place in the Texas Panhandle we find a panoply of genres: vocal improv (“Improv With Unknown Insect”), noise (“The Wind Plays Harsh Noise Set in Tractor Shed”), and gospel (“Rock of Ages”). We hear birds, insects, and thunder; we hear cattle and people imitating cattle. But most of all, we hear Sarah Ruth with her friends, walking, singing, banging on farm equipment and playing guitar, harmonica, and didgeridoo. We learn a lot about the environment, but even more about the people who live there and make the unforgiving landscape a lively—and yes, noisy—place.

Audio Crackle

NON-MUSIC ROUNDUP (DEC 23, 2023)

‘Fellowship of the Arid Plain‘ is a uniquely bizarre and strangely fascinating album of intriguing field recordings and avant sound experimentation. Sometimes amusing and fun, sometimes poignant and moving, sometimes haunting and unsettling… this album makes for a wonderfully unpredictable listening experience.

The Wire

SKATEBOARD GUITAR AT RGRS (LIVE)

Converted to a guitar by Stephen Lucas, the skateboard in question – as hazily scried by Denton, Texas’s Sarah Ruth Alexander – often sounds, alternately and simultaneously, like a harp, an untuned violin, a space heater, a barge approaching port, a Star Trek effects bank. Skateboard Guitar at RGRS (Live) blazes and drawls, heckled and hectored forward by her wordless aria bursts and more concrete exclamations. While at moments there is a sense that the more outsized textures have been freeze-dried and are being shaken together in a bag or used to stage an impromptu game of marbles, the piece always defaults back to Alexander and a few core melodies, to include elements of 19th century hymn “Leaning On The Everlasting Arms”. –Raymond Cummings

Ondarock

SARAH RUTH – THE SHAPE OF BLOOD TO COME (TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN)

When she debuts … the spiritualist eclecticism of The Shape Of Blood To Come the author gives something labyrinthine and shamanic at the same time … On a similar level of atmosphere but different in nature and in the outcomes are placed squares made with only one instrument, starting from the voices, the counting Gregorian moan a cappella that is “Ouroboros”. Maria Callas and Diamanda Galas finally meet in “Catharsis In Infinitum,” a distant opera stasis crashed by obscene squeals and Hendrix-iani typhoons … Even haughtily and not without snobbery in its extremely comfortable times, the disc – plus an anthological collection – brushes a valuable knowledge outside of rock: chamber music, piano music, avant-garde vocalism, electronic music, ethnic folk.

Dallas Observer

8 FEMALE DFW ARTISTS WHO’VE TAKEN A SLEDGE HAMMER TO THE GLASS CEILING

Alexander challenges audiences to expand their concepts of music and performance by defying the narrow lens through which metal music is often seen. Alexander also teaches vocal workshops around the area, including vocal techniques, warm-ups and vocal care. Playing by her own rules, Alexander is an inspiration for anyone who dares to be extraordinary.

D Magazine

TO GROW IN 2018, TAKE LESSONS FROM THESE ARTISTS

Sarah Alexander, torch-bearer for improv, experimental music and free jazz, who studied with Meredith Monk and was schooled in voice and composition at UNT … “Music can be a form of meditation and ritual … Everything you do to take care of your voice is just plain good for your body, being hydrated and having good posture, for example. Sometimes when I feel a migraine coming on, I can sing high notes and ward it off-it’s real! Your personal music practice is time set aside for yourself, ritual. For me, it feels really cleansing.”

Dangerous Minds

THEY SAY THE WIND MADE THEM CRAZY: THIS IS THE ALBUM OF THE YEAR

The album, titled Far From the Silvery Light is the best new thing to come across my turntable in the past couple of years, and although we’re only halfway through 2016, I’m going out on a limb and declaring it my “album of the year.” I can’t gush hard enough about this avant-folk-operatic exercise in utter despair … Sarah Ruth Alexander plays hammered dulcimer, harmonium, recorder, bells, and effects and sings like the unholy stepchild of Jarboe and Yma Sumac. … Ruth’s operatic moans and wails evoke a bleak desolate landscape, not unlike the album’s cover art, in the same way that the aforementioned Sumac’s evoked exotic pagan isles.

Movement Magazine

POUR LE CORPS RECORDS RELEASES NEW ALBUM FROM SARAH RUTH

Through spare, classical-informed arrangements recalling the ambiance of Erik Satie, Nick Cave, Swans, or Julianna Barwick, Sarah Ruth harnesses the power and stark beauty of the natural world around her to weave a distinctive sound and narrative at turns haunting, poetic, and autobiographical. (Much of the record is inspired by her upbringing on a rural West Texas farm that’s been in her family since 1864, as well as being raised by survivors of the Dust Bowl.) Embracing an austere, unwavering focus, these aren’t songs; they’re experimental, neo-noir meditations, evoking a distinctly Southern gothic landscape. Sarah Ruth’s ruminations on everything from betrayal, to the blood in her veins, to the fading traditions of her ancestors capture the state of Texas as cinematic state of mind, conjuring the desolation of the wide-open planes, the pulverizing wind of a dust storm, the charmingly homespun, dirt-flecked narration of a Terrence Malick film. Despite all this, it’s her voice that never ceases to command the spotlight. Operatic in its trenchant emotional pull-pristine, crystalline, penetrating, soaring-Sarah Ruth’s vocal gymnastics are mesmerizing.

Teaching

I have several years of teaching experience in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area with all ages, skill ranges, and musical backgrounds. If you’re interested in working with me, please use the contact form below!

Private and Groups

I teach all ages and skill levels, in both private lessons, weekly classes, and special workshops.

VOICE

I combine classical training and my diverse performing background to help you find your musical voice!

PIANO

I teach beginner through intermediate piano lessons to help build a musical foundation and the fundamentals of music theory.

IMPROVISATION

I draw on my experience with multiple ensembles to lead workshops in group performance and improvisation.

Contact