The Long Ear

The Long Ear is the debut album on Kou Records by Noh Age — Charmaine Lee (parabolic microphone, feedback, voice), John McCowen (contrabass clarinet, Bb clarinet, recorder) and Li-Chin Li (sheng) — recorded live over three days at Brooklyn Recording in March 2026 and produced by Randall Dunn.

The parabolic microphone carries its own history: a Cold War surveillance instrument designed to listen at a distance, to locate and amplify what would otherwise remain inaudible. Here it is turned inward, routed through four vintage tube amplifiers, locking onto frequencies from contrabass clarinet, sheng and voice until feedback ignites.

Across six pieces built from cellular automaton compositional frameworks and graphic scores, the trio moves between extreme registers — CBC fundamentals, dense sheng cluster voicings, and the upper partials of recorder and mini sheng — with feedback wandering through it all.