Jessica Moss - Unfolding Jessica Moss

Unfolding is Jessica Moss’ most meditative and plaintive solo album, and perhaps the first in the Montréal violinist/composer’s decade-spanning discography that might properly be called ambient. The ex-Silver Mt Zion and Black Ox Orkestar member draws from post-classical, drone, minimalism, industrial/metal, power electronics, Klezmer and other folkways. This is not abstract ambient music; layers of violin melody, electroacoustic processing, intermittent voice, and percussion from The Necks drummer Tony Buck, bring forth deeply emotive genre-defying
compositions guided by a spirit of searching and summoning that unfold in a prevailing atmosphere of incantation and mournful restraint.
The inseparability of the personal and political has wrung ever tighter for Moss over the past two years. As a core member of the Montréal chapter of Musicians For Palestine, she’s co-organized and played several benefit shows, and released the solo album For UNRWA in spring 2024 (garnering over 800 supporters and raising thousands of dollars). Later that year, her long-term long-distance relationship melted down over politics.
Working closely with producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart), Moss notes “Unfolding was made slowly, over the last 12 months, the second full year of genocide in Palestine, in direct response to our collective witnessing, our collective grief, as a portal to collective mourning, as a searchlight through our internal weather systems, seeking one another out in the dark.” Moss was already moving towards heightened fragility and deep listening, her music becoming increasingly durational and ceremonial. Despite the plummeting financial viability of touring, her devotion to holding space, conjuring entanglement, and connecting with intimate live audiences became her creative lodestar, her solo praxis shaped by committing to and communing in these rooms. Recent political and personal upheavals have only intensified these ritualistic, reparative musical processes.
Unfolding is dedicated to “a free Palestine in our lifetime.” Thanks for listening.