Janel Leppin

Over the past two decades, the cellist and multi-instrumentalist Janel Leppin has worked steadily to become one of the most compelling composers and improvisers of her generation. With her beloved Washington, D.C. scene as her home base, she has earned renown among fans of new and experimental music worldwide. Her astonishing range of projects includes Janel and Anthony, the duo she shares with her spouse, Messthetics guitarist Anthony Pirog; the extraordinary pop-tinged singer-songwriter music she makes as Mellow Diamond; and music with Marissa Nadler, PRIESTS, Rose Windows and many others.

Now at the peak of her powers as both a bandleader and a solo performer, she’s released two new projects of staggering beauty as well as vast personal and political insight. Pluto in Aquarius features her longstanding avant-jazz chamber unit, Ensemble Volcanic Ash, with a lineup of her most trusted collaborators including Pirog, bassist Luke Stewart, saxophonist Brian Settles and drummer Larry Ferguson. Slowly Melting is a riveting solo program that puts Leppin’s fuzz-saturated cello at the fore. She also contributes her accompaniment, crafting expansive soundscapes through guitar, bass, piano and Prophet-5 synthesizer.

Taken together, these Cuneiform Records releases highlight the duality at the core of her life as an artist, and as a person. In Ensemble Volcanic Ash, she’s once again an orchestra kid, relishing the camaraderie of making music with her friends. As a solo performer, especially onstage, she continues to marvel at how affecting the sound of her cello can be — how her centuries-old instrument, when thoughtfully filtered through analog technology, can bring a contemporary audience to tears.

These two albums also represent a triumph over adversity for Leppin, namely the physical hurdles she’s battled since college, when she severely injured her upper body and had to refrain from playing her instrument for more than a year. In the decades that followed, both setbacks and progress ensued, in addition to plenty of physical therapy.