Powerhouse music collective Zach Barocas New Freedom Sound releases Two Freedoms (he Cultural Society/Sweet Cheetah Records., a two-song 12″ vinyl and digital release, on August 20. You can pre-order it here.

New Freedom Sound is a collaborative improvisational music group led by New York-based composer and drummer Zach Barocas. Its core membership includes longstanding members of the DC-area punk communities as well as the classical and jazz communities there and elsewhere. New Freedom works are currently identified in a numbered series of “Freedoms,” each of varying duration and instrumentation.  Two Freedoms is comprised of the Fourteenth and Twelfth Freedoms.

Barocas says, “Ours is spiritual music, in the sense of deriving from our individual spirits, our spiritedness, our personal energies. Our musical interests and influences include Sephardic songs, contemporary classical, Latinx music, free jazz, chamber music, Afro-Cuban rhythms, and popular songs. Our understanding is that these elements combine for and emerge equally from our audience and our desired audience: varied heritage, passion, and openmindedness; a belief that art matters and is capable of creating ecstatic and positive shifts in consciousness. These are the qualities we seek in ourselves and find in each other.”

Two Freedoms extends Barocas’s practice into areas of greater duration and harmonic range, incorporating ideas based in the fields of incantation and repetition, as well as a greater reliance on ensemble shifts and instrumentation. The release follows on the heels of Four Freedoms (2021), Eight Freedoms (2022, Arctic Rodeo Recordings), and Second Freedom (2023).

Photo by Alex Long