Robin Holcomb, Peggy Lee, Wayne Horvitz

This interview was conducted by email during July 2025.

Tony Reif: Robin and Peggy, you first started performing as a duo around 2005? So this record has been a long time coming. My question is whether you think there’s anything different about it as compared to where you were at in say 2015 – apart from some new Holcomb songs. Has there been a noticeable evolution in the ways you complement each other and develop pieces over this long period of time? Is there anything about the intimacy of a duo (and this duo certainly is intimate) that consciously affects how you play together compared with how things tend to work in other formations?

Robin Holcomb: Over time, we continue to grow familiar with each other. In some ways that has to do with pacing – stopping and starting, talking at the same time, accompanying and soloing. That said, I imagine that much of this was comfortable the very first time we played together. There is and was none of the self-consciousness or self-awareness that happens so often when playing duo with someone. It has always been very relaxed, from my vantage point. And unpredictable, even with a shared understanding of form and how the music has sounded in (often many) previous iterations.

Peggy Lee: I haven’t listened to any past recordings at all so don’t know how different the duo sounds compared to 10 or more years ago. I do think I feel more comfortable in it. Years ago I couldn’t help associating piano/cello duos with my experiences playing classical sonatas in school which imposed a certain discomfort but I think I’ve finally gotten over that and am able to be more present and communicative (hopefully!).

TR: How were the pieces arranged or developed formally? Peggy, were you basically creating your own lines and countermelodies, and was that somewhat worked out in advance or left to the inspiration of the moment? What about solos and improvised duos? Over time have the two of you created a compatible vocabulary that’s different in (probably subtle) ways from how you interpret your own music alone or in larger groups?

RH: Unless we are playing totally free, we loosely hammered out a form, mostly where the written music would go. The improvisations and more subtle architecture generally just happen. Peggy’s parts often touch on the written music, but not always. Playing duo with Peggy doesn’t feel different to me than when I play solo. Clearly more intimate than with a large group, though that depends on the people involved.

PL: When I am playing a composed part, it will be one of the lines from Robin’s piano score. We’ll try a few options and decide what works best or I’ll switch it up within a piece if there are a few verses. In the improvised solos and duos there is really no discussion as to what it should be and they usually take a few twists and turns.

TR: There are 8 songs with lyrics on the record alternating with 8 instrumental pieces. How did you decide what to include (and the sequencing)?

RH: We recorded pieces we’ve enjoyed playing and then listened over time to see what seemed to fit together, sequentially, and what was interesting in terms of energetic contrast or flow.

TR: I believe some of the songs were composed recently for a play – which ones are those and what was the play, what was it about? The lyrics in “Copper Bottom” include “I’m not coming back to the colony ever” – what colony, and who is the character who’s saying this? Other songs that I think are part of this group cover a range of emotional colours and existential concerns (e.g. “Divine Stall” for the latter, also maybe “The Sweetest Thing”?). Many of the songs seem to express combinations of resignation, grief, something like despair, and on the other hand hope, stubborn resistance. A couple of songs have a livelier, more playful quality. And could we consider the last song on the record, “Waltz”, as a summation of sorts: “as dreamers we often see…glory”?

RH: “Copper Bottom” comes from The Utopia Project, a suite of music and songs that I wrote in 2004 about utopian communities that thrived the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s/early 1900s. This song may be about a mother on the verge of leaving. I wrote from the point of view of imagined characters, based on my research, including time spent in the Special Collections of the University of Washington library, where one had to wear white gloves and take off one’s jacket in order to hold in one’s hands pieces of paper with inventories of possessions brought by members to the community – all written in the most lovely script. “The Sweetest Thing” and “The Point of It All” also come from this piece.

“Divine Stall” comes from We Are All Failing Them, my most recent song cycle. It reflects the story of the Donner Party, scored for voice, piano, cello (Peggy), banjo/guitar and Foley artist and was performed with film and magical objects. “Waltz” comes from Angels at the Four Corners (1989), my earliest song cycle. It was a mashup of extrapolations on both the histories and imagined futures of people I knew while sharecropping in North Carolina and The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow. “Waltz” is a good ender in that it starts specific and ends wide open.

Usually one or a handful of songs come to have a life outside of the context of the original song cycle.

TR: The oldest of the other songs here is I think “Larks, They Crazy”, which goes back at least to the late 80s. I was struck by the great duo improv on this piece and by the darkness of the lyrics, also by how completely, typically “Holcomb” the melody, harmonies and lyrics already sound. So this is a question for everyone: what are some of the things (musical qualities, thematic concerns, whatever) that define the Holcomb sound?

PL: Great depth and beauty, polytonality, life, simplicity within complexity.

RH: This song (“Larks, They Crazy”) comes from looking out of the window in a Nashville hotel room a long time ago. My first and shortest lyric. I was trying to find my way into writing songs at the time, and this was a poem before it was a song. That was my way in – setting Shakespeare or my own poems to music. Writing lyrics without those established word structures/architectures didn’t come until later. I’m not a confessionalist. While I write from my experience it is not necessarily always my lived experience. In this song, it is.

TR: And the converse: what are the special qualities that define the Lee approach, in this context or generally?

RH: Peggy is a deep and beautiful player on so many levels. She has an uncanny sense of not only color and rhythm and implication but also of how to blend with a voice. And harmony and melody! She is also a supremely deft improviser and a great foil for me. I can go in and out of vocal music/instrumental music without a second thought. Not everyone can not only follow me, but be right there with me.

PL: Trying to find the simplicity.

TR: Could you talk about the inspiration you find in American folk music and how it affects your music-making together?

RH: We bring histories of listening to all kinds of music when we play together – sensibilities of simplicity and complexity, clarity and chaos. Not American particularly, or, rather, not intentionally so, but overall, my music especially seems to sound that way to some people.

PL: There are a lot of influences and sources of inspiration but I’m just trying to contribute in a way that feels true to the moment.

TR: Peggy, do natural sounds inspire you – the whale glisses obviously, but maybe other sounds that aren’t so specifically identifiable?

PL: I haven’t consciously attempted to recreate particular sounds from nature in the music but I’m sure they are mixed in with other influences, environmental and otherwise.

TR: Wayne, you produced the record and it sounds very truthful and beautiful, especially so on audiophile systems. Any secrets that you’d like to share with us? The equipment has to be part of it – and the piano (what was it?) – and the room? But there’s a sonic synergy here that’s special…

WH: The recording has a lot of “living room feel” to it, and in fact it was recorded in a living room. This is reflected in the intimacy of the sound and the intimacy of the musical interaction. Our host has a sort of boutique studio in his home – plus a beautiful, and beautifully maintained, Steinway B piano. The studio isn’t publicly available, but he has it for his musician friends, his own projects, and projects he is interested in. Strings and piano sound particularly good in there, although we’ve gotten a fantastic drum sound in the same room as well. He has a limited quantity of gear, and every item is at the highest level. Fantastic mics, great preamps and converters. So, for a duo or trio it’s hard to beat.

The mix was very simple. I did as little as possible, and as few rides as possible, and just tried to stay out of the way. Really the question for each track, depending on the dynamics, was the balance between the close mics and room mics. That changed some from mix to mix. Otherwise, it took care of itself.

The absolute secret to great sounds is recording musicians that have great sounds, so there wasn’t much to worry about in that department.