Photo from {Re}HAPPENING 13 by Brett Naucke
Thursday, July 17th, 2025 at 7pm
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center {120 College Street}
TICKETS – $12 General Admission / $8 for BMCM+AC members + Students w/ID
Asheville-based musicians Ashley Paul (alto saxophone), Jake Pugh (computer) and Shane Justice McCord (piano, bass clarinet) will play as a trio on July 17th. Their performance blends acoustic instruments and live computer processing. All three musicians have released music on their own, Ashley’s albums under her name, Jake’s albums under Splash Blade, and Shane’s albums under Sham and Shane Justice McCord.
Ashley Paul is an American multi-instrumentalist/ composer currently based in Asheville, NC. Her intuitive process integrates free form song structures with a focused approach to sound. Using a complexity of instruments including saxophone, clarinet, voice, prepared guitar and percussion she creates a delicate palette, uniquely her own. During the summer of 2020 Ashley began composing for her trio RAY featuring Yoni Silver and Otto Willberg. Ashley released the album ‘Ray’ on Slip in late 2020 and ‘I am Fog’ on Orange Milk in 2022. The trio explores the fringes of free improvisation and song form, where melodies are dissected and slowly pieced together, alluding to shape but only occasionally binding together. Since moving to Asheville, Ashley has returned to performing solo using her unique set-up of saxophone, prepared guitar, voice and found objects.
Ashley has performed or collaborated with Nik Void, Thurston Moore, Rashad Becker, Loren Connors, Gavin Bryars, Aki Onda, Lucy Railton, Tashi Dorji, Simon Fisher Turner, Rhys Chatham, Eric Chenaux and Lonnie Holley. She has been commissioned to compose work for Musarc Choir premiered at LCMF 2018, A quintet for Counterflows Festival 2017 and “The Pace of Time” premiered at Roundhouse (London) 2013. Ashley performed the World and US premieres of Phill Niblock’s Asheli, a piece composed specifically for her and Eli Keszler and performed live with Niblock. She performed the US premiere of Mauricio Kagel’s Der Schall at Merkin Concert Hall (NYC) and premiered Anthony Coleman’s quartet Damaged by Sunlight at Banlieues Bleues Festival (Paris). She received a residency at ISSUE Project Room in 2008, a Fellowship Grant in composition from the Rhode Island State Council of the Arts, 2010 and a residency at FUGA (Zaragoza, SP) 2016. In 2020 Ashley was a finalist for The Arts Foundation ‘Futures Award’ in experimental music. Ashley received her BM and MM from New England Conservatory, Boston.
Jake Pugh performs and releases music as Splash Blade. Recent releases include Limit Breaker / Comet Lake (2024), Live from The Edge of Eternia (2023), and Memory:Link (2023). Splash Blade adventures have spanned cross each province of Mythica & have included collaborations with Magic Box, Solar Necklace, Intel Relic, High Farseer Di-Bologen & many others. Known for uniting lost empires & restoring the balance magicka, Splash Blade is considered by some to be only a myth told by the fire on a cold night of the Season of Ice. However, some vagrants (both AI & of the organic soul) hold the truth within their figurative hearts.
Shane Justice McCord is a human being living in Woodfin, NC. Shane has been making music for 20 years intentionally (and 29 years accidentally). Tree of Heaven (2025) is the first release under birth name SHANE JUSTICE MCCORD, however Shane has released music with Sham, Ellicott Hooligan, and other projects the last years. Tree of Heaven explores sound and song through textured acoustic instrumentation, field recording collage, woodwind composition, tape manipulation and lyrical songs.
