#4964, New Sounds Live: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn, From National Sawdust

R&B singer-songwriter and producer Dawn Richard and multi-instrumentalist and composer Spencer Zahn harness their collaborative musical curiosity and quiet the noise. A shared vision of common collaborative ethos, musical curiosity, and a cosmopolitan eagerness to escape the conventions of genre first brought Richard and Zahn together on 2022’s Pigments—icy and warm, stripped-down and grand, familiar and otherworldly. They reunited for a second recording, 2024's Quiet in a World Full of Noise. 

By turns intimate, soul-baring, spectral, and startling, Quiet in a World Full of Noise blends atmospheric and orchestral soundscapes with mellifluous soul, jazz, and journalistic vocalizing—driving it all home with stark, confessional lyricism. Richard channels the emotional impact of recent traumatic experiences of loss into her lyrics and vocal performances, which are left bare and human here, raw and unprocessed across the album. Zahn's eerie instrumental recordings serve as the basis for this progressive, avant-garde R&B by rewriting them altogether. Hear their set, recorded live at National Sawdust in October of 2024 for the New Sounds Live concert series. 

Program #4964, New Sounds Live: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn, From National Sawdust (First aired 1/09/2025)

ARTIST: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn
WORK: Life in Numbers [1:00]
RECORDING: Quiet in a World Full of Noise
SOURCE: Merge Records
INFO: https://dawnrichard.bandcamp.com/album/quiet-in-a-world-full-of-noise

ARTIST: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn
WORK: Ocean Past [3:06]
RECORDING: Live at National Sawdust, Oct. 2024
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The work appears on Quiet in a World Full of Noise

ARTIST: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn
WORK: To Remove [4:47]
RECORDING: Live at National Sawdust, Oct. 2024
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The work appears on Quiet in a World Full of Noise

ARTIST: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn
WORK: Life in Numbers [4:34]
RECORDING: Live at National Sawdust, Oct. 2024
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The work appears on Quiet in a World Full of Noise

ARTIST: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn
WORK: Saffron [4:23]
RECORDING: Live at National Sawdust, Oct. 2024
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The work appears on Pigments

ARTIST: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn
WORK: The Dancer [2:50]
RECORDING: Live at National Sawdust, Oct. 2024
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The work appears on Quiet in a World Full of Noise

ARTIST: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn
WORK: Vantablack [3:21]
RECORDING: Live at National Sawdust, Oct. 2024
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The work appears on Pigments

ARTIST: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn
WORK: Diets [2:05]
RECORDING: Live at National Sawdust, Oct. 2024
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The work appears on Quiet in a World Full of Noise

ARTIST: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn
WORK: Traditions [3:53]
RECORDING: Live at National Sawdust, Oct. 2024
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The work appears on Quiet in a World Full of Noise

ARTIST: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn
WORK: Try [7:17]
RECORDING: Live at National Sawdust, Oct. 2024
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The work appears on Quiet in a World Full of Noise

ARTIST: Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn
WORK: Moments for Stillness [1:56]
RECORDING: Quiet in a World Full of Noise
SOURCE: Merge Records
INFO: https://dawnrichard.bandcamp.com/album/quiet-in-a-world-full-of-noise