Adam Kirsch

Laurentia

Adam Kirsch is a multi-instrumentalist based outside of Grand Marais, MN. Kirsch's solo guitar music follows a path laid out by American Primitive guitarists, such as John Fahey and Glenn Jones and celebrates devotion to the beauty and complex power of the natural world. Adam's acoustic guitar playing utilizes sacred meolodies and the elasticity of time to tell stories that are slow and patient, noticing in the detail and nuance of life all around.

Laurentia. Composed and recorded 2022, Northern Minnesota

1. Let Yourself Go Unto Heaven. To me this was always a welcoming, “Hey! How ya doin?” kind of piece - to a new year, to new thoughts on music, to a lot of things . Early on this was a meditation on the shores of the big lake, but later grew into a still larger picture of the joy in noticing. The slower, the better.
6 string guitar, CGCEBE, partial capo 4
Bb clarinet

2. Laurentia. A billions year-old landmass that’s been through some changes and seen some stuff. I’ve been on it for a blip in time but it’s more or less all I know. This album started simply as a group of songs that came from a fascination with geology and geography and trying to paint pictures in geologic time scale. But people time does its work and you can’t be away for too long. Maybe these songs became a stand-in for Everything - past, present, future. An abbreviated history of time. Maybe this is the only song I’ve ever played or ever will play.
12 string guitar, CGCD#GC
lap steel
electric guitar

3. Fresh Water In Your Bones. I read a story about a family from Russia that built a boat and set out to circumnavigate the globe. They ended up in the Duluth harbor and had to pause their journey for a global pandemic. Before continuing onward after sometime, in the news article I was reading the father of the family praised the kindness of the community of strangers that housed them and helped them during their time on the north shore. He figured that living right next to so much fresh water, it finds its way inside of you. An ode to kindness, wherever it comes from.
6 string guitar, CGCEBE

4. Peatland/Hovland.
5 string banjo, fCFAF

5. Not For Lack Of Trying. Best of intentions, don’t worry about it too much.
6 string guitar, CGCEBE, partial capo 4

6. The Lobster By Electric Light. The comfort of friends, no matter how different they may be.
5 string banjo, fCFAF
Bb clarinet
lap steel

7. Leave My Body On Pickle Mountain. The simple pleasures of home and of small-scale agriculture. Winter dreams of spring.
6 string guitar, CGCEBE
electric guitar

8. The Farquhar Knob. A portrait of a particularly nice day spent in the forest.
6 string guitar, CGCEBE, partial capo 4

9. Aeolian Process. Cleverly composed in the Greek mode of the same name. Some time spent thinking about wind erosion… and maybe being a more interesting person.
12 string guitar, CGCD#GC

10. On A Passing. To EEP.
6 string guitar, CGCEBE
Bb clarinet

11. Put Your Rider Aground. Sometimes you have to buck and rear and roll around to finally lose them.
12 string guitar, CGCEGC

12. My Man Is An Eagle. To the infinite, the same drop of water, all that jazz.
5 string banjo, fCFAF
Bb clarinet
electric guitar

Adam Kirsch
Dec. 31st 2022
Grand Marais

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Before relocating to the woods, Adam played in a number of Minneapolis based bands, including Fire in the Northern Firs, DIIE, and the Absent Arch

Improvisations on and Rituals of the Morning

Improvisations on and Rituals of the Morning is an album of stories that are slow and patient, noticing in the detail and nuance of life all around.

This attention to detail and nuance is on full display in the works of Improvisations on and Rituals of the Morning. Some pieces, such as Moon and Spore, are slow to show themselves and evolve into a phasing repitition that could continue on into oblivion and are as focused in their goal as are the beings they represent. Some, like the Fog and Smoke pieces, retreat back to silence just as quickly as they appeared and yet other pieces are brash and hurried, fearing of what might be ahead or close behind if one lets their guard down to rest for too long.

Written, performed, and recorded during beautiful, albeit drought-stricken and forest fire driven smokey summer mornings. Improvisations on and Rituals of the Morning attempts to pause a moment in time and focus it on the more elusive and unnoticed lives being lived all around us.

6 & 12 string guitar
5 string Banjo
Bb Clarinet
Subtractive Synthesis
Household Objects