POSTCARDS is an album of improvised vocals and live electronics performed by Stephanie Lamprea and Alistair MacDonald, recorded live in Glasgow on 10 March 2022. The set was inspired by field recordings made by Alistair in different parts of the world, including Spain, Lithuania, France and Malaysia. In the live performance, field recordings were played followed by improvisational responses. This album features the improvisations with some of field recording material.

Many thanks to those who attended this performance in person, and we hope you all enjoy this now in record form!

Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea is an architect of new sounds and expressions as a performer, recitalist, curator, and improviser, specializing in contemporary classical repertoire. Trained as an operatic coloratura, she uses her voice as a mechanism of avant-garde performance art, creating “maniacal shifts of vocal production and character… like an icepick through the skull” (Jason Eckardt). Stephanie has received awards from the Concert Artist Guild, St. Botolph Club Foundation, the John Cage Orgel Stiftung, the Puffin Foundation, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Stephanie has performed as a soloist at Roulette Intermedium, Constellation Chicago, Sound Scotland, National Sawdust, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Casa da Música. She has collaborated with several leading new music ensembles and bands including the International Contemporary Ensemble, Wavefield Ensemble, So Percussion, Red Note Ensemble, Talujon, Guerilla Opera, and Post Coal Prom Queen. In 2022, Stephanie released her debut solo album, Quaking Aspen, on New Focus Recordings. Featuring new works for voice and electronics by Jason Eckardt, Wang Lu, Kurt Rohde, Hannah Selin, George N. Gianopoulos, and James May, the album was hailed by PopMatters.com as "a bold artistic statement that’s exciting and innovative... a magical, intense, and deeply satisfying journey," and praised by Opera News for "her iconoclasm and fearless commitment to new sounds" and "impressive display of extended vocal techniques, in the honorable tradition of such forward-looking artists as Bethany Beardslee, Cathy Berberian and Joan La Barbara." A passionate educator and speaker, Stephanie has taught and performed in residency for universities across the United States and Europe including the University of California at Davis, Temple University, the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. She has presented her artistic research for the Wildflower Composers (USA), the European Platform for Artistic Research in Music (London), and the 2021 Shared Narratives Conference (Scotland), and she was a featured TEDx Speaker for TEDxWaltham: Going Places. www.stephanielamprea.com

Alistair MacDonald is a composer, performer and sound artist. His work is often collaborative, working with artists, dancers, musicians in diverse media using interactive digital technology. He designs his own computer-based sound processing instruments/environments to create uniquely rich, spatialised music and sound. His work encompasses composing, field recording, live electronics, interactivity and improvisation. Projects include music and sound design for the film The moss and the cosmos (for The Cumnock Tryst); music for the 1922 film Nosferatu with Phil Minton and Vlady Bystrov; a solo CD for empreintes DIGITALes, and two CDs of improvised music for Leo Records; recordings with Strange Rainbow, a live electroacoustic improvising duo with Scottish harp player Catriona McKay; works for Belgian dance company Reckless Sleepers; The Last Post with trumpet player Tom Poulson and director Susan Worsfold, and works for glass percussion, electronics and live flame-working with glass artist Carrie Fertig. www.alistairmacdonald.co.uk