Duo brings new album Absence and Her Sister to the Northeast and Midwest this fall
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New and ancient songs of New England, the album is informed by the wide palette of a decades-long collaboration that has ranged from Bosnian folk to avant-garde minimalism to cinematic scoring.
Tim Eriksen and Peter Irvine, whose new album of folk minimalism and Gothic Americana Absence and Her Sister was released this spring, have announced new U.S. tour dates. The duo will play a run of Northeast dates in September, followed by a Midwest and mid-Atlantic leg in October. In a recent Boston Globe feature, “Early New England Had Its Own Robust Musical Style,” Tim discussed traditions he has spent decades breathing new life into, as well as the creative possibilities of being from a place without a sound.
September Tour Dates
Sept 8 — Jalopy, Brooklyn, NY
Sept 9 — House Concert, Middletown, CT
Sept 10 — Passim, Cambridge, MA
Sept 11 — Monadnock Folklore Society, Keene, NH
Sept 13 — Word Barn, Exeter, NH
October tour dates, including stops in Chicago, Minneapolis, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Lancaster, PA, will be announced shortly.
Also This Fall: Yale Schwarzman Center
On October 22–23, Eriksen joins the ensemble Ruckus, along with John Taylor Ward, Linnea Sablosky, and Lily Hammond, for Eternity’s Begun: Early American Hymns for a Time of Crisis at Yale Schwarzman Center’s The Dome in New Haven, CT. The program, part of the Center’s Fall 2026 season, centers on a new commission by composer Celeste Oram and explores the political and spiritual resonance of early American hymnody. Details: schwarzman.yale.edu.
About the Album
With Absence and Her Sister, longtime collaborators Tim Eriksen and Peter Irvine return to their roots in folk minimalism and gothic Americana with new and ancient songs of their deeply multicultural, native New England, informed by the broad palette of their other collaborations.
In the face of aggressive AI, the music unfolds as it actually happened: no edits, overdubs, pitch correction, or dynamic compression. A PS Audio review calls the album “one of the most real sounding recordings I’ve ever heard,” and “elemental,” with a “timeless quality that makes the music seem like it simply is.” Novelist Nicholson Baker described it as “piercing soothing grieving grooving songs and sea monkey harmonies, and whistling too. Beautiful lilting strong…amazing.”
About Tim Eriksen
Tim Eriksen is a singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and ethnomusicologist from Northampton, Massachusetts, and a specialist in American shape-note singing, New England ballads, and Bosnian folk music. His songs have been covered by Alison Krauss (“Granite Mills”), Joan Baez (“I Wish the Wars Were All Over”), and Bonny “Prince” Billy. A GRAMMY and Latin GRAMMY finalist for his collaboration with pianist Omar Sosa, he has contributed to films including Cold Mountain (Academy Award, Best Picture) and The Outwaters. In 2026, Eriksen was invited by Rhiannon Giddens to appear in her sold-out USA 250 performance at Carnegie Hall, and was profiled by the Boston Globe. He is a founding member of Cordelia’s Dad and the sole recipient of the Jean Ritchie Musical Heritage Award, given by Ritchie herself.
About Peter Irvine
Peter Irvine is a percussionist, composer, attorney, and stalwart Sacred Harp bass singer with a background in sound design for theater. A founding member of Cordelia’s Dad, he has collaborated with Eriksen across multiple projects, including their Bosnian ensemble Žabe I Babe and the New England magic lantern show Pumpkintown. His film work includes The Outwaters.
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