murder ballads cover.jpg
murder ballads cover.jpg

Jessie Marino - Murder Ballads Vol II: The Positive Reinforcement Campaign (CD)

170,00 kr

On The Positive Reinforcement Campaign, Berlin-based composer performer Jessie Marino teams up with Norwegian new music stalwart percussion trio Pinquins, and bassist Inga Margrete Aas.

Using the language of folk music traditions to witness and retell our current reality through a feminist lens, they weave together improvised experimental soundscapes, traditional American Sacred Harp hymns, and folk ballads as they sing the tales of precious entities, be they human or environmental, which are subjected to the brutality of contempt, greed, jealousy, violence, and utter disregard.

On The Positive Reinforcement Campaign, Berlin-based composer performer Jessie Marino teams up with Norwegian new music stalwart percussion trio Pinquins, and bassist Inga Margrete Aas.

Using the language of folk music traditions to witness and retell our current reality through a feminist lens, they weave together improvised experimental soundscapes, traditional American Sacred Harp hymns, and folk ballads as they sing the tales of precious entities, be they human or environmental, which are subjected to the brutality of contempt, greed, jealousy, violence, and utter disregard.

  • Jessie Marino is a Berlin-based composer, performer, and media artist. Her compositions and performances abstract ideas drawn from all stripes of popular culture and political discourse, girded by a definitively humanistic sensibility rife with equal doses of wit and pathos.

    “Murder Ballads Vol II: The Positive Reinforcement Campaign” is the first recorded output from an ongoing band project, launched in 2023, with the Norwegian percussion trio Pinquins (Sigrun Rogstad Gomnæs, Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen & Jennifer Torrence), and contemporary music stalwart bass player / composer Inga Margrete Aas; all artists who are known for challenging boundary notions around genre, and the role of the performer.

    “The Positive Reinforcement Campaign” can be said to consist of one part experimental folk, one part Appalachian motet, and one part glitching, noisy, fluttering drone, but luckily we´re not dealing with a pastiche of isolated references.

    Marino uses the language of folk music traditions to witness and retell our current reality through a feminist lens, with traditional American Sacred Harp hymns and folk ballads at the core. Through improvisation, experimentation and group singing “The Positive Reinforcement Campaign” has banded together to stretch out and fill up the containers of these traditional songs - populating them with their own sonic languages to reflect on the horrific stories of now; singing songs about precious entities which are subjected to the brutality of contempt, greed, jealousy, violence and utter disregard.

    Guests Emilia Dorr (voice), Weston Olencki (trombone) and Wendy Eisenberg (guitar) further expand the already deliciously rich sonic palette, with idiosyncratic contributions to one track each.

  • Release date: 24.04.2026

    Artist: Jessie Marino

    Title: Murder Ballads Vol II: The Positive Reinforcement Campagin

    Catalogue number: MOT44CD

    Recorded by: Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard  

    Mixed & mastered by: Weston Olencki

    Format: CD + digital

    PERSONELL:

    Jessie Marino – composition / song arrangement, fiddle, voice, electronics

    Inga Margrete Aas – double bass, voice

    Pinquins:

    Sigrun Rogstad Gomnæs - percussion, voice

    Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen -percussion, synthesizer, voice

    Jennifer Torrence - percussion, voice

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    Emilia Dorr – voice (track 4)

    Weston Olencki – trombone (track 5)

    Wendy Eisenberg – guitar (track 6)