‘Sumptuous Branching,’ the second solo album from Chicago-based woodwind composer and improviser Emily Rach Beisel, is out now on Amalgam, and it’s one of the most conceptually rich records to emerge from the avant-garde this year.
Beisel performs everything here: bass clarinet, vocals, piccolo, and electronics, woven together in a singular, theatrical flow. The album was recorded at Marmalade in Chicago by Bill Harris, mixed by Harris and Beisel, and mastered by Edward Hamel. It’s a fully realized sonic world, and every element of it was deliberate.
The conceptual foundation runs deep. “Sumptuous Branching is born from late medieval chant,” Beisel explains. “Early chant doesn’t have strictly codified rules in place yet, so it has a wild freedom and rich density that I find so compelling. The work in Sumptuous Branching is my imagining of this replete style in my own voice.”
Lead single “Cantilevers” sets the tone immediately. Inspired by Mark Z. Danielewski’s ‘House of Leaves’ and the structural logic of chant, the track layers lines that stretch forward and overlap without ever resolving at a single shared point. Beisel describes it as “a kind of chant that doesn’t loop back on itself, does not end.” It’s as arresting in practice as it sounds in description.
The album draws from a remarkable range of source material: Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s ‘The Iliad,’ Guillaume de Machaut’s ‘La Messe de Nostre Dame,’ and Danielewski’s architectural fiction. Beisel moves through these influences with genuine command, never letting the conceptual framework overwhelm the music’s visceral immediacy.
A Jazz Noise captured it well: “heavy stuff, sounds retrieved from the deeper places… BEISEL pokes around in the sonic depths and brings leviathans out to play.” That description holds across every track on ‘Sumptuous Branching.’
Beisel, a 2024 3Arts Awardee in Music and Northwestern University graduate, approached this record differently than their debut, touring the material through Spring 2025 before entering the studio. “I love albums that offer an intentional journey and reward listening from beginning to end,” Beisel says. “This record very much falls into that category.”
The Midwest release tour continues now through May 12th.
‘Sumptuous Branching’ Tracklist:
- Introit
- To Rise In Arms
- Cantilevers
- Hollow Ships
- Her Still Singing Limbs
- We Who Behold The Bright Surface
- Sumptuous Branching
Sumptuous Branching Midwest Release Tour 2026:
May 9th – Carnegie Art Center – Mankato, MN
May 10th – The Pattern Room – Minneapolis, MN w/ Liz Draper
May 11th – University of Minnesota – Minneapolis, MN
May 12th – Art Lit Lab – Madison, WI