Friday May 29 * doors at 7pm, music at 7:30 * $15-20 / NOTAFLOF

Alex Koi x Kirin McElwain is a duo of original music for voice, cello, and modular synthesizer.

Kirin McElwain is a cellist and composer working in the realms of experimental, contemporary classical, and improvised music. Weaving together classical and Baroque influences with an affinity for sub-bass and harsh electronic textures, her music explores themes of desire, shame, perfection, and belonging.

As a cellist, Kirin has performed on various film and television scores (HBO, National Geographic, Gimlet Media, PBS, NPR Tiny Desk), with contemporary artists (Post Malone, Ioanna Gika, This Will Destroy You), and as part of mixed media installations (the MET, James Cohan Gallery, Neue Galerie) as well as traditional classical and contemporary classical concerts (Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, Kimmel Center, Roulette), in addition to many community-run venues.

Her self-released 2023 EP Viriditas made the end-of-year lists at Anxious Magazine and A Closer Listen. Kirin has been an artist-in-residence at EMS Stockholm and Westben Center for the Arts, a New Amsterdam Records Composers Lab Fellow, and a Foundation for Contemporary Art awardee.

Kirin’s full-length solo debut Youth was released by AKP Recordings in October 2025.

Alex Koi is a composer, vocalist and improvising musician. Combining her diverse influences in Jazz and improvised music, the avant-garde and electronic, her work has been called “primal and futuristic at the same time” [Current Magazine] and “impossibly beautiful” [Stereo Stickman]. She has had the privilege of collaborating with musicians, composers, visual artists, directors and dancers at venues such as Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Joe's Pub, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, MassMoca, The Oculus, Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival, and Public Records, to name a few. She played the combined role of Tracy Dunn/Jillian Gilchrist in Toshi Reagon’s Off-Broadway production of "Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower", the theatrical adaptation of the beloved novel. In 2020, she was a featured artist at Joe’s Pub Vanguard Gala Honoring Laurie Anderson, curated by Shara Nova, where she performed alongside Meshell Ndegeocello and Morley, amongst others.

Her upcoming album "Wake" with cellist Kirin McElwain is slated for Spring 2027 release, a co-led project for voice, cello, and modular synthesizer. The duo was invited to play Eighth Blackbird’s Eyrie Festival, the Detroit Institute of Arts, New Music Detroit’s Strange Beautiful Music Festival, and more. They look forward to touring their project internationally in the 2026-2028 seasons. The duo recorded their debut album “Wake” with acclaimed engineer Randall Dunn at Circular Ruin Studios in Brooklyn.

Previously, her former long-term band project Saajtak has been called “one of the most intriguing and unclassifiable bands in the country right now" [Tone Madison]. Saajtak has released five independently-released EPs and one LP via Chicago’s American Dreams record label.

Alex has received grants from the Church of Noise, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and YoungArts. She has been awarded residency at Avaloch Farm Music Institute in 2024 and 2026. She was a composer fellow at NewAmsterdam Composer Lab as well as a performer fellow with Bang on A Can. In addition to her many collaborative projects, she is developing the music for her debut solo recording.

Walsh Kunkel is a guitarist, composer, label curator and electronic musician hailing from Baltimore, Maryland. With a focus on combining electronic and acoustic music styles, Kunkel is forging his own sound and searching for ways to express his views of the world through his work.