Interview by Todd Matthews

Cristin Miller and Annie Lewandowki are the creative duo behind Emma Zunz -- the avant-garde musical group that draws from its namesake short story by Jorge Luis Borges to explore a certain dark aesthetic, influenced by noirish fiction and torch songs. The group received a Jack Straw Artist Support grant this year, and is embarking on a tour of Europe and the West Coast this summer. I recently caught up with Miller to discuss Emma Zunz, her creative influences, and Seattle's freely improvised, avant-garde music scene.

TODD MATTHEWS: How did you and Annie arrive at improvised music? It's my understanding that you started out playing classical piano, studied jazz voice, and earned a degree in creative writing. What sorts of backgrounds (music, literary, or other) inform your music?

CRISTIN MILLER: Well, Emma Zunz isn't really improvised music, although Annie and I have both been identified as improvising musicians and have been working mostly in that realm for the last five years or so, and that's how we met. Both Annie and I started from a background of classical piano. That's what Annie got her undergraduate degree in. She moved very intentionally towards improvised music. She wanted to study it, so she went to London and worked with improvisers (pianist Veryan Weston, saxophonist Caroline Kraabel, percussionist Eddie Prevost) there for several months, playing piano. I came to improvised music more like a person searching for her lost cat and happening upon the Grand Canyon. I'd been studying jazz voice, and getting kicked out of rock bands because my songs were too weird, too hard to play. I was living with Gregory Reynolds, who is an incredible improvising saxophone player whose playing I've admired for years, and he encouraged me to play with him. Our very first session, I had this ecstatic experience which I'd only ever had before with writing, alone. Creative satori, or that feeling of having the top of your head come off -- to rip off Emily Dickinson. What we are doing now has turned out to be a wonderful net for all of our different influences and interests over the years... the sense of discovery and innovation, the love of accident, the prepared guitar stuff and the extended technique stuff -- that's all from improvised music. But then the very carefully shaped tiny nuances reminds me more of classical piano or art song. And then there's definitely a participation in rock music or popular songwriting, in which feel and mood and texture are explored more in forms which are harmonically very simple. And thinking carefully about words, thinking about stories.

MATTHEWS: Describe the Emma Zunz project. I'm assuming it's inspired by the short story by Jorge Luis Borges. How did that project originate, and what sort of inspirations and areas did you tap?

MILLER: Yes, it's from the Borges. The original idea was that, over a winter holiday, we would each write a handful of songs which seeded from a single moment or idea from his story, "Emma Zunz." That got us writing, and what came out wasn't really about the story but was eerily in keeping with its themes about female sexuality, power, loss, revenge, and death. We're exploring a certain dark aesthetic, influenced by noirish fiction, torch songs, a certain nostalgie de la boue. The writing of Carole Maso, Mark Ryden's work, Baroness Elsa von Freytag, the photographs of Charcotf -- these are my inspirations. Musically, we both were coming from the improvising world, so we had incredibly similar instincts about leaving lots of space, using minimal structures, and listening intensely. We also both had the habit of wanting a certain sound and scanning the room to find some random object which might get you closer to it. That led naturally to the bow, which happened to be lying around my apartment, along with an old broken violin.

MATTHEWS: You were both awarded a Jack Straw Artist Support grant this year. Describe the project you are working on as a result of this grant.

MILLER: The Jack Straw grant gives us 20 hours of free studio time. We are working on recording a full-length CD. We get to work with engineer Doug Haire, who is phenomenally open minded, brilliant at what he does, and fun to work with. We are touring in Europe this June, and again here on the West Coast in August. Aside from those interruptions, we're hoping to finish by the end of summer.

MATTHEWS: Seattle's improvised music community strikes me as particularly vibrant and filled with large numbers of musicians. What has been your experience working in this environment in terms of musicianship, venues and audiences?

MILLER: I think Seattle has a wonderful community right now. There are lots of people who are taking lots of risks musically and expanding so dramatically, the government should really step in and stop it. When I first moved here, Polestar played a huge role in creating a community, and I'm very excited for the collective Gallery 1412, which took over Polestar. The space is musician-run now and I feel that there's a more expansive, inclusive attitude. There are certain key people who work really hard to keep things progressing. Gust Burns comes to mind. He has been a huge force in creating opportunities for people here, in fostering a scene. Tom Swafford as well -- he's been hosting Sound of the Underbrush every Monday night for a couple years now. Audiences mostly come out to see players whose names are internationally famous. But there are enough hardcore listeners and musicians who come regularly to make the shows fun and worthwhile. Making a highly uncommodifiable art form in a commodity age sort of dooms you to small audiences. But there's also a utopian quality of complete remove from the marketplace. You sort of end up passing the same wrinkled five dollar bill back and forth, going to each others' shows.

This interview originally appeared in Earshot Jazz