Matana Roberts

Matana Roberts is a composer, performer, bandleader, saxophonist and sound experimenter who has earned an undisputed international stature through a series of startling albums and performances.

Active across many disciplines, including improvisation, musical composition, visual art, dance, poetry and theatre, Roberts is best known for her acclaimed Coin Coin project, a multi-chapter work of mixed multimedia performance that seeks to express the mystical roots and intuitive traditions of American creative expression, while maintaining a deep and substantial engagement with narrative, history, community and political expression within sonic structures.

The "Coin Coin" series, structured in twelve parts, began with "Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres" (2011), which Tiny Mixtapes called "one of the decade's most conceptually ambitious, sonically captivating and emotionally raw musical odysseys...". The "Coin Coin" cycle traces its roots back to 1742, the birth year of freed slave entrepreneur Marie Thérèse Metoyer, whose nickname, "Coin Coin" (also the nickname given to Matana by her grandfather), lends its title to the saga itself.

"Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile" also draws on the literary conversations Matana had with her grandmother, alongside talents such as tenor Jeremiah Abiah, pianist Shoko Nagai, trumpeter Jason Palmer, bassist Thomson Kneeland and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. Following its release, Pitchfork called Matana "one of the most exciting new spirits in contemporary music".

"Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee" took a different path, with Roberts choosing to perform solo and make heavy use of electronics for the first time. "Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis" was released in 2019 and chiefly tells the story of a girl whose parents were killed by the Ku Klux Klan.

With a reputation forged over the last two decades through visceral, exhilarating live performances, in November 2022 Roberts toured Europe presenting "Coin Coin Chapter IV: Memphis" with a five-piece ensemble, at a number of prestigious venues including the Berliner Festspiele, Banlieue Bleue in Paris and Milton Court in London.

New performances and soundtracks have been commissioned by the Donaueschinger Musiktage (DE), the Miller Theatre's Composer Portrait series (US), The Crossing (US), Walthamstow Borough of Culture (UK), Brooklyn Rider (US) and composers Claire Chase, Elaine Mitchener and Johnny Gandelsman, while their mixed-media artworks have been shown in a variety of solo and group settings, including a major solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York, as well as works displayed at the Akademie der Künste, Daadgalerie and Savvy Contemporary (Berlin), Bergen Kunsthall and the Fridman Gallery in New York.

2023 saw the release of the fourth chapter of the series: "Coin Coin Chapter Five: In The Garden...". Within the thrilling musical, theatrical, literary and intellectual tapestry of Matana Roberts's project, this album stands out for its different perspective and unconventional premise. Unlike the previous albums, which referenced a specific geographic place – Louisiana, Mississippi, Memphis – or the author's own personal story, the new record forgoes any geographic identity, focusing instead on emotion as the historical and universal glue of humanity, centring on all the contradictions of America and the ever-tangible struggles of being Black and a woman.