Stefan Tcherepnin: Songs for the Living
Stefan Tcherepnin: Songs for the Living
Blank Forms
Brooklyn, NY 11238
Ever since relocating to Stockholm in 2020, Stefan Tcherepnin has pursued an eclectic range of musical projects in and around his visual art practice. Before the move, he spent a year in Kingston, New York, where he wrote a set of songs for an unfinished album, Montrepose, named for the cemetery where he took daily walks with his then one-year-old son. While he intended to arrange and record the material, the project was shelved as he turned to other, uncategorizable work. He kept composing, however, gravitating toward a kind of off-kilter lounge act: voice and piano. After countless hours of WFMU, streaming “six hours into the future,” the station’s musical oddities nudged him toward less conventional instrumentation, and he returned to childhood tools: a Casiotone MT-65 and the Sonica, a rare portable Serge instrument he has played since before his first birthday.
For Tcherepnin’s Saturday (November 1) evening concert at Blank Forms, he will perform a selection of tunes tracing the emotional and metaphysical path from Brooklyn to Kingston to Stockholm. On Sunday (November 2), he reflects on that journey with a meditation and musical prayer session. Meanwhile, unfinished business in New York remains: Afuma’s sophomore album, Windhammer, has sat on the shelf since 2020, and Montrepose, his solo acoustic album, is finally nearing completion after five years on the back burner. Projects have hatched, bloomed, died, or lain dormant; Songs for the Living offers a tasting menu of what Tcherepnin has been brewing during his time away from the city.
Stefan Tcherepnin is a Boston-born, Stockholm-based artist, performer, and fourth-generation composer (following his great-grandfather Nicholas, grandfather Alexander, and father Ivan). Droll and enigmatic across his various mediums, Tcherepnin’s most recognizable visual motif is an oversized, furry creature likened to an off-kilter Cookie Monster, which he has staged in several compromising tableaux: surrounded by drained cans of cola and bags of candy, at the bar contemplating the anamorphism of reality, or on its knees silently screaming/preaching. Musically, Tcherepnin gravitates often to the electric and acoustic baritone guitar and the Serge Modular, a synthesizer invented by and named after his uncle. These tend to render a more somber tone than his Muppet-spoofing monsters. Song of Seven Keys, a site-specific installation performed at Art Basel Miami Beach 2023 with drummer Paul Sigerhall (as the duo Kvantum), builds a self-effacing melody, mimicking the wind drifting in from beyond Key Largo. Elsewhere, Tcherepnin’s dirgescapes and flickering, atonal electronica get embellished by caterwauling guitar licks. Still, Tcherepnin’s sense of humor shines irrepressibly through: 2019’s Stefan Tcherepnin Sings features acoustic ballads inspired by religious cults, Hannibal Lecter, “and other fun subjects.”
Blank Forms is located on the first floor of 468 Grand Ave in Clinton Hill. There is one step down from the entrance to the building. If you require help accessing the space or would like to use our wheelchair ramp, please contact izzy@blankforms.org.