Mattie Barbier at The Museum of Jurassic Technology {January 18th, 2026}

Mattie Barbier presents a concert of music drawing from their recent Discreet Archive release, is this the land i wish death to find me. Utilizing geophonic recordings and electronics Barbier recreates the resonant space of the Tank Center for Sonic Arts, a formerly abandoned water tank in Western Colorado. This recreation is used to explore slowly shifting just harmonies that draw inspiration from exploratory archaeoacoustic research  into how spaces hold residual sound of past action and how resonance interacts with material over time. The second half of the program, teeth of the second range extends Barbier’s long-term interest in sonifying spaces, referencing iterative room-resonance processes following the work of Alvin Lucier's I am Sitting in a Room. Alto, tenor, and bass trombones were recorded and re-recorded to build a choir of unplayed or “phantom” brass instruments. The resulting piece is constructed from the acoustic reality of the instruments when allowed to resonate without human input. teeth of the second range traces a simple I–IV–V–I progression in Bb major, a tonal center associated with the trombone, but the spectral content produced by spatial playback diverges significantly from familiar brass harmony. The effect highlights a tension between functional, performance-based acoustics and the inherent sonic profile of the instruments themselves. The title refers to an early poetic name for the Organ of Corti, taken from Veit Erlmann’s Reason and Resonance.

Mattie Barbier is an LA based musician and sonic researcher focused on experimental intonation, latent acoustic worlds, and the physical processes of their instrument. Their playing has been described by the LA Times as being "of intense, brilliant, virtuosic growling that gave the striking impression that Barbier was dismantling the instrument while playing it," by the Wire as “exploring the nooks of instrumental tone far beyond the reach of most mortals,” and by the New Yorker as being a "diabolically inventive trombonist-composer.

ALL RESERVATIONS ARE WILL-CALL.  

Masking will be encouraged at this concert.

This concert is made possible in part by grants from the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.