Ben Kujawski: piano, accordion, lap steel
Abigail Smith: percussion, flute
Justin Rhody: violin, guitar, harmonica

Recorded at No Name Cinema in Santa Fe NM, April 2025
Mixed at home by Justin Clifford Rhody, June - July 2025

K / S / R (the trio of Ben Kujawski, Abigail Smith & Justin Rhody) have been performing and recording together since 2022. After releasing multiple cassettes, a 5” single, a 2xCD compilation, and devastating audiences across the country with multi-projector expanded cinema performances, Already in Heaven marks the trio’s debut full-length LP and their most accomplished work to date. Recorded by the band themselves during a full week of day-long sessions - violin, percussion, lap steel, accordion, flute, guitar, harmonica, and rhodes piano were each stretched, damaged and made to sing through various extended techniques. Every other day the band would leave the window-less warehouse to instead record in either a remote cave or the echo soaked lobby of a local post office. While those off-site sessions mainly occurred as an exercise in sonic recalibration and they don’t appear on this LP, it’s mentioned here in order to stress that these three instrumentalists are steadfast jammers. Inspired by the rehearsal schedules of their jazz composer heroes, K / S / R chooses the studio over sitcoms and the bar. Every day and all day. The trio’s non-concentric approach to collective improvisation mirrors the dark harmonic density and symbiotic formal structures of the cosmos. Industrial work zones are also a major inspiration.

Video: vimeo.com/1122664362