Short Bio.
Daniel Wyche is a Chicago-based guitarist, composer, and improviser. Working with a wide range of physical preparations, extended techniques, and pedal instruments, his solo recordings and live performances are characterized by long-form structured improvisations and multichannel guitar. He has been a curator with the Elastic Arts Foundation in Chicago since 2013, where is work has been described as “crucial” by Dusted and “vital” by the Chicago Reader. In March of 2020, Daniel co-founded The Quarantine Concerts in collaboration with Chicago’s Experimental Sound Studio. The series has been widely praised as a model for online/streaming live music. Along with his solo guitar work, Daniel is involved in several ongoing collaborations, most notably the trio of Wyche, Mark Shippy (US Maple), and Ben Baker Billington, as well as new work with longtime collaborators like Patrick Shiroishi, Lake Mary, and many others.. His most recent solo record, “Earthwork,” was released on American Dreams Records in 2021.
Bio.
Daniel Wyche is a Chicago-based guitarist, composer and improviser. Working with a wide range of physical preparations, extended techniques, and pedal instruments, his solo recorded work and live performances are characterized by long-form structured improvisations. Recently, this approach has become increasingly integrated with the exploration of multi-channel performance and the spatialization of sound, including new compositions for quad- and 16-channel guitar.
Daniel's 2016 record "Our Severed Sleep" (with Ryan Packard) was called “a blowout to wake the dead” by the Wire, “reverent music,” by Decoder, and “an infinite swansong of bliss” by Tiny Mix Tapes.
Along with his solo work, Daniel is highly active in the improvised and experimental communities in Chicago and beyond, including a number of ongoing collaborations. The 2017 self-titled release by the trio of Wyche, Ben Baker Billington (Tiger Hatchery, ONO, ADT), and Mark Shippy (US Maple, Invisible Things) on Astral Spirits was referred to as "flat-out exhilarating improvised mania" by Marc Masters. Both the trio’s Astral Spirits debut and follow-up on No Index were praised by Byron Coley in the Wire. In 2020, he released a live trio record with LA-based improvisors Patrick Shiroishi and Ted Byrnes on Astral Editions, and new music with Lake Mary is forthcoming, among other projects in process.
Daniel’s work as curator and producer with the Elastic Arts Foundation in Chicago since 2013 has been described as “crucial” by Dusted and “vital” by the Chicago Reader. In March of 2020, Daniel co-founded The Quarantine Concerts in collaboration with Chicago’s Experimental Sound Studio. The series has been widely praised as a model for online/streaming live music, and has raised around $100,000 which has gone directly to artists and performers who have lost income during the pandemic. A documentary short on the series, by director Brian Ashby, can be seen online at The Wire.
Daniel can be reached by email at cityofthepresent (at) gmail (dot) com
Press
Press for Earthwork (American Dreams 2021)
12.11.22 - FFFoxy Podcast #213
2.15.22 - Foxy Digitalis, Another Glow: An Interview With Daniel Wyche About Video Games
1.19.22 - Interview, Music Therapy with Jessica Risker
1.19.22 - Since I Left You blog, preview of Music Therapy interview
12.19.21 - TBD Interview on KCSB FM, Santa Barbara CA.
12.17.21 - “Guitarist Daniel Wyche can wring a plethora of sounds from six strings. The trio recordings he participated in for Astral Spirits and Astral Editions showed that he is both capable of spitting fire and unleashing torrents of liquid tone. With Earthwork, his debut for the American Dreams imprint, he turns inward…” Dusted Magazine
12.8.21 - “'Every moment on the album feels open, inviting every spontaneous sound that enters the fold. Much of the album occupies an unsettled, unpredictable trajectory that’s coloured by a sense of poignancy.” —Vanessa Ague, The Quietus
12.5.21 - Tome to the Weather Machine Top 50 of 2021
12.3.21 - “Chicago guitarist and composer Daniel Wyche turns the grief of dealing with loss into an outward swinging pendulum. Earthwork, written and recorded over a veritable lifetime, speaks to the complicated tangles within us; to the idea that the impermanence of living and breathing is offset by the permanence of memory. Wyche uses these soundwebs as a way to sift through the countless tendrils that need to be separated before it’s possible to move forward. […] Wyche brings a lifetime into focus on Earthwork, letting the road ahead unfold at its own pace, never forcing the issue or veering too far into the woods. It’s a major statement that takes repeated listens to crack open, and even then the depth of Earthwork is still beneath an aural mountain.” —Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis, [il y a une traduction française ici: Rock Decibels]
12.3.21 - A Jazz Noise Bandcamp Friday recommendation #4 of 13
12.2.21 - “a hearty and diverse serving of experimentation.” —Joseph Neff, The Vinyl District, “Graded on a Curve: New in Stores for December, 2021”
12.1.21 - “[On] the stirring title track…Wyche’s small string strikes create the tension of a horror film, as if a huge guitar chord is always around the corner, ready to pounce.” —Marc Masters, The Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp: November 2021
12.21 - “Rather than making the recording less personal, his bringing the audience into the creative process only intensifies its authenticity…his own version of working in a team that shares the labour of shifting piles of dirt and stone, or raising the foundations of a new building” —Spensor Tomson, The Wire Magazine, December 2021 (Issue 454)
11.30.21 - Chicago Reader 2021 Final Bandcamp Friday Recommendations
11.29.21 - Fifteen Questions Interview
11.22.21 - 91.3 WYSO The Outside
11.14.21 - “an ideal distillation of the niche where Wyche truly excels: seamlessly mingling the beautiful and the melodic with the fiery spontaneity of noise and go-for-broke improv.” —Anthony D'Amico, Brainwashed
11.13.21 - Brand New: Electro Saturday 13.11.2021
11.12.21 - The Moderns Friday 5: Five releases you need to know.
11.19.21 - The Moderns Episode 185
11.11.21 - “A deep, ethereal meditation on childhood and family,” —Chris Ingalls, Pop Matters
11.10.21 - Mind the Gap 152, Gonzo Circus
11.4.21 - “The intimacy is specifically that of home. For Wyche, the piece [Earthwork] makes him think of the color of earth exposed while digging a foundation […] The soundscape has that kind of warmth and texture, lived-in and evocative enough for listeners to build on.” —Noah Berlatsky, “Daniel Wyche makes guitar ambience you can feel at home in,” Chicago Reader Profile.
10.25.21 - NPR Viking’s Choice Playlist
10.24.21 - Brainwashed Podcast Episode 542
10.19.21 - XRAY FM, Double Bummer #304
10.24.21 - Brainwashed Radio Episode 542
10.7.21 - WRCT 88.3FM SweetBabyJesus Playlist
Press for The Quarantine Concerts at ESS Chicago
6.30.20 - “Aliveness: Technologies of Gathering in Times of Covid,” on The Quarantine Concerts, by Maria Zuazu, Flash Art.
6.26.20 - The Sick Muse #13, Summer 2020, on The Quarantine Concerts.
6.10.20: “The Quarantine Concerts,” a documentary Short directed by Brian Ashby, Scrappers Film Group, The Wire Issue 347.
6.10.20 - “What’s been clear throughout the whole process, though, is that community is everything…The Quarantine Concerts serve as a reminder that even when we’re suffering more than ever, people can come together to make things a little better—a little more tolerable—for all of us.” —Joshua Minsoo Kim, The Wire Magazine, July 2020 (Issue 437) on The Quarantine Concerts.
5.23.20 - “Aficionados of improvisation and the avant-garde can gravitate toward the Quarantine Concerts, a daily online production by the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago.” —Alex Ross, '“Concerts in the Void” review, on the Quarantine Concerts, the New Yorker, May 23, 2020
3.24.20 - Decaycast Review of “The Quarantine Concerts” Online Show Series with ESS Chicago
Press for Byrnes/Shiroishi/Wyche: Long Day
5.12.20 - “The session may have been recorded in the midst of a long day, but their interactions feel scrupulously attuned.” - Dusted Magazine review of “Long Day” by Byrnes/Shiroishi/Wyche
Press for The Last Flight of the Voidship Remainder
(2020 reissue and original releases)
4.21.20 - Rummage Radio with Robert Stokoway, Episode 7, featuring “William’s Song.”
4.10.20 - Interview with Tome to the Weather Machine
3.20.20 - Bandcamp Daily Features/Interview by Jordan Reyes (The Last Flight, 2020 Reissue)
3.8.20 - Interview with Daniel Wyche by Daniel Klag on Dense Liquid, Newtown Radio
3.7.20 - Avant Music News, Picks of the Week (The Last Flight, 2020 Reissue)
3.4.20 - Tome to the Weather Machine Podcast #58 (The Last Flight, 2020 Reissue)
3.1.20 - Brooklyn Rail March Listings (The Last Flight, 2020 Reissue)
2.10.20 - DIM Things: Sonic Baptism with Spirit Lust and Friends (The Last Flight, 2020 Reissue)
4.15.15 - Decoder Magazine, on The Last Flight of the Voidship Remainder
2.19.15 - Decoder Magazine, on The Last Flight of the Voidship Remainder
1.21.15 Tabs Out, on The Fire in the Lacquer House
8.15.14 - AD Hoc FM, on The Last Flight of the Voidship Remainder
8.8.14 - Tiny Mix Tapes, on The Last Flight of the Voidship Remainder
4.2.14 - Ad Hoc, on The Fire in the Lacquer House
2.6.14 - Decoder, on The Fire in the Lacquer House
Press for Billington/Shippy/Wyche
(S/T on Astral Spirits, “The Eventual Warpcat” on No Index)
12.20.19 - Tabs Out, top 200 tapes of 2019 (Billington/Shippy/Wyche - “The Eventual Warp Cat” 179)
12.14.19 - Industry Dump 2019 Roundup, on “The Eventual Warp Cat”
4.28.19 - Touching Extremes, on “Our Severed Sleep”
2.21.19 - Chicago Crowd Surfer, review of “The Eventual Warp Cat.”
1.30.19 - The Deli, Chicago, on Billington/Shippy/Wyche - The Eventual Warpcat (No Index)
5.15.18 - "The trio comes together to compose the aural equivalent of an optical illusion, a dizzying duality of feet-stay-in-one-place-while-the-head-spins-around movement and non-movement that plays a trick on the ears, simultaneously disorienting, magnetic, and incredibly hypnotic....The action and energy of each piece is manifested in manipulation and development of dynamic extremes, time feel, and the expansion and contraction of tone, each instrumentalist moving between full, expanded use of his entire instrument and controlled and caged use of select voices within it." - Jazz Right now, on Billington/Shippy Wyche - S/T (Astral Spirits)
5.2018 - The Wire, Adventures in Modern Music, May 2018 Print Edition, Byron Coley on Billington/Shippy/Wyche - S/T (Astral Spirits)
12.20.17 - "Of the many excellent tapes put out by Austin label Astral Spirits this year, the most flat-out exhilarating is this improvised mania from guitarists Mark Shippy (U.S. Maple) and Daniel Wyche alongside drummer Ben Baker Billington (Quicksails). The trio sounds completely unfettered throughout three high-flying tracks, without ever seeming random or directionless. There are equal amounts of thought and sweat here; often the trio melds into a unified point of white-hot energy, such that it’s hard to imagine how they recovered their own individual identities afterward." - Marc Masters, Bandcamp Hi Bias, 10 Best Cassette Releases of 2017 (#4) on Billington/Shippy/Wyche - ST (Astral Spirits)
12.11.17 - Tabs Out Top 200 Cassette Releases of 2017, Billington/Shippy/Wyche #29
10.25.17 - "The trio goes straight for the jugular and then the carotid, detonating a pipe bomb of serrated guitar and frantic drumming that is virtually impossible to withstand...the virtuosity on display is spellbinding in its acceleration" - Tabs Out, on Billington/Shippy/Wyche - S/T (Astral Spirits)
10.20.17 - Jordan Reyes, Decoder Magazine, on Billington/Shippy/Wyche - S/T (Astral Spirits)
10.20.17 - Bill Meyer, Dusted, on Billington/Shippy/Wyche - S/T (Astral Spirits)
9.30.17 - Reviler, Photos from Cropped Out 2017 (Billington/Shippy/Wyche)
9.27.17 - Underground Bee, Photos from Cropped Out 2017 (Billington/Shippy/Wyche)
9.5.17 - "This tape is the fuckin' truth" - Marc Masters on Twitter, on Billington/Shippy/Wyche - S/T (Astral Spirits)
6.15.15 - Vital Sound, Wyche/Shippy/Billington Live at Elastic Arts
Press for Our Severed Sleep (2016)
1.17 - "a blowout to wake the dead" - The Wire, Adventures in Modern Music, January 2017 Print Edition (Issue 395), p. 74, on Our Severed Sleep
1.6.17 - "Elusive and yet overwhelming, the record becomes a psychedelic journey through improvisational means, including furious free rock and hardcore-esque outbreaks." - Deconstructing Interference #8, Invisible Oranges, on Our Severed Sleep
12.29.16 - Kathodik, on Our Severed Sleep
11.10.16 - "reverent music, a work of art indebted to the tradition of grappling with both the sublime and the divine, a piece dedicated to extending reach" - Decoder, on Our Severed Sleep
8.9.16 - KFJC 89.7FM, on Our Severed Sleep
7.14.16 - Interview with Nicholas Zettel at Industry Dump on the making of Our Severed Sleep
6.16.16 - "an infinite swan-song of bliss" - Tiny Mix Tapes, on Our Severed Sleep
6.10.16 - Our Severed Sleep Record Release Preview by Seth Bousted, at "Classical Music, By and For the Good Guys."
6.6.16 - Art into Life, on Our Severed Sleep
5.23.16 - Industry Dump, on Our Severed Sleep
8.16.16 - Disaster Amnesiac, on Our Severed Sleep
Other Press:
2.13.15 - “An exercise in anxiety from an all-star cast” - Impose Magazine, on Headless Horse Head's Spanish Antibiotics
2.12.15 - “Daniel Wyche (straight-up guitar wizard)” - AD Hoc FM, on Headless Horse Head's Spanish Antibiotics
3.17.13 - Tabs Out Cassette Podcast, Episode #23 - 3.17.13, on A Judicious Observation of that Dreadful Portent
Notable recent performances.
8.21.18 @ The Empty Bottle, Chicago, with Efrim Manuel Manuck
9.23.17 Cropped Out Festival, with Billington/Shippy/Wyche
7.31.17 The Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago, Option Series; duo performance with Kelley Sheehan
3.7.17 The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, multichannel performance of The Work of Light, with live visuals by Jon Cates, & accompaniment by Ryan Packard & Seth Parker-Woods. Part of the Merce Cunningham retrospective, "Common Time."
7.8.16-7.12.16 Visiting Artist, ACRE residency, Steuben, WI.
7.7.16 Omaha Under the Radar Festival, Omaha, NE, debut of The Work of Light, a structured improvisation for quad guitar and broken computers.
12.11.15 Experimental Sound Studio Chicago, debut of The Fire in the Lacquer House II, a new arrangement for ESS's 2015 Oscillations series; co-written with Jonathan Lange, and performed by Daniel Wyche (guitar), Andrew Clinkman (guitar), Ryan Packard (vibraphones), and Lia Kohl (cello).
10.11.15 The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, performance of John Cage’s “Child of Tree” with Nick Meryhew, Jenna Lyle, Andrew Tham, Alejandro Acierto, and Sam Scranton; curated by Peter Margasak & Michael Green.
5.15.15 Constellation Chicago, debut of “Think About Ryan,” an improvised score/game, for Easy/Not Easy III, curated by Matthew Mehlan and featuring: Tomeka Reid, Jim Becker (Califone, Iron and Wine), James Falzone, Tim Kinsella (Joan of Arc, Owls), Jamal Moss (Hieroglyphic Being), Adam Vida (U.S. Maple, Singer), Katherine Young, Parlour Tapes, Jordan Martins, Ryan Ingebritsen, Levy Lorenzo (ICE), Alex Inglizian (El is a Sound of Joy), Natalie Chami (Good Willsmith), Ryan Packard (Fonema Consort)
3.8.15. Constellation Chicago, debut of “William’s Song,” a piece written & arranged by for “There is No Repetition: Spahlinger at 70,” a festival of new music in honor of the work of German New Music composer Mathias Spahlinger, organized by Peter Margasak & Seth Brodsky, March 2015; Performed by Daniel Wyche & Ryan Packard. Recorded in part by David Zuchowski at Constellation, the rest recorded & mixed by Brian J. Sulpizio at the Compound, April-June 2015. Now available on “Our Severed Sleep” (Eh? 86). Special thanks to Peter Margasak, Seth Brodsky, Ted Gordon, & Ensemble Mocrep.
Rochester, NY, June 2016; photo credit Rob Nuuja