Em Spel & Counterfeit Madison

Em Spel is the solo project of Chicago-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Emma Hospelhorn. Her debut album, The Carillon Towers, was released to widespread praise in 2022. Hospelhorn is a flutist in avant-classical group Ensemble Dal Niente, and her discography includes work on flutes, bass guitar, and keyboards for V.V. Lightbody, Mute Duo, and others working in a diverse array of genres including folk, drone, garage rock, post-punk, and classical. In this solo endeavor, she fuses all of these influences with story-driven lyrics to create invitingly strange folk vignettes.

Counterfeit Madison is the stage name of pianist, composer, and vocalist Sharon Udoh, whose music is by turns vast, vigorous, versatile, violent, and emotional. Music for Udoh is a form of worship, a way to communicate with other bodies, souls, and spirits. Her songs center around relationships to lovers, queerness, Blackness, womanhood, family, religion, and country.

Joining Counterfeit Madison is Russ Rolen!…