Photo by Laura Ortman

It’s important to listen to Samara Lubelski when she is playing solo.

This is not to dismiss her excellent collaborations. I have heard Samara Lubelski in duos, trios and ensembles, including with my roommate Loren, and she is decidedly “exceptional value added” to any of these settings. I particularly appreciate her adventurous work with the intrepid sound artist Marcia Bassett, with whom she recently completed a tour in Spain and Portugal.

Still, it is worth your time to take a raincheck on your other listening activities, and settle into solo Samara Lubelski.

I had an opportunity to do that most recently at Ka Baird’s loft, when Lubelski performed as part of Baird’s recently revived and ever welcome “Pineapple Realty” music series. I had heard solo Lubelski, as she has a long and impressive track record of solo recordings. And I had seen and heard her play extended solo segments as part of a night of collaboration.

But I had not experienced in person the impact of a full, dedicated solo performance by Samara Lubelski, with both her and her listeners undistracted by any collaboration coming before or after.

It is different. It is all-consuming.

I get annoyed when people attempt to discuss Lubelski’s music in terms of genres, describing it as a “nod” to psychedelia, abstract folk, noise or drone. She is none of those, and nowhere near them.

What Samara Lubelski generates is not a product. It’s a communication that permeates your shell. She plumbs the depth of profound thought.

It’s like being alone with yourself and listening to the echoes of your bone structure.

But it doesn’t just stay there. Samara’s music travels. She takes you on a journey.

There’s something about being in the room with a sound, at the time it first emerges. Perhaps the sensation comes from the essence of vibrations that don’t get captured no matter how the music is recorded. The infinity within a moment of vibration.

I found, after hearing Samara Lubelski in a live, in-depth performance, that I got more out of her recorded work as well. That may be one of the secrets behind her 2020 release, Partial Infinite Sequence. Our minds can only grasp part of an infinite sequence at a time, but the potential of infinity nevertheless is felt in every excerpt.

I remember a music store called “Lunch for Your Ears.” It seemed like an odd name, at first, but actually, Manny Maris was right. We all need our musical nutrients.

If you are in the NYC area, you can experience the Samara Lubelski phenomenon yourself on July 23, 2022 at P.I.T., 411 South 5^th Street in Brooklyn. 8pm.

You will also benefit from an exceptional treat that night: A reunion of Peeesseye (actually, I’ve never been sure of how many e’s or s’s are in the name), the intriguing trio of Chris Forsyth, Jaime Fennelly, and Fritz Welch that launched somewhere around 2002 and blessed the Brooklyn music scene and beyond for about a decade.

Get your nutrients.