
KIRSTEN CAREY
Is a composer, guitarist, shamisen player, and sound editor. She has toured across the USA, Canada, Japan, Europe, and Thailand. Her unique voice has been showcased at the International Society for Improvised Music conference (2014), Banff International Workshop in Jazz & Creative Music (2018), Edgefest (2018), the Co-Incidence Festival (2018), and Strange Beautiful Music (2023). Her wide-reaching work gained recognition from the Asian Cultural Council (2019) and Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2023), who awarded Carey grants for music research and collaborative works in Japan. Carey's distinctive guitar solo is featured on noise rap trio clipping.'s song for the soundtrack to the Emmy Award-winning TV series Rick and Morty. Her duo with MacArthur fellow Tyshawn Sorey opened for the Sun Ra Arkestra. Carey has also shared the stage with luminaries like Wadada Leo Smith, Elliott Sharp, Mishio Ogawa, Karl Berger, Michiyo Yagi, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, and Weasel Walter, and shared bills with the influential acts like Deerhoof, Thumbscrew, Nicole Mitchell, Evicshen, and Circuit Des Yeux.
Carey’s diverse array of projects began with The Ulysses Project, a 2013 song cycle about James Joyce’s Ulysses. The Uroboros Sextet, which blends free jazz with rock and new music, earned features in Downbeat and All About Jazz. Her album Mature Defense Mechanism with Aaron Edgcomb released on Relative Pitch Records in 2024, and the duo’s set at the Skanu Mezs festival in Riga, Latvia was highlighted alongside Autrechre’s by the Queitus. Art rock / mixed media duo Throwaway released their latest album on Chicago’s FPE Records in 2022, garnering praise in Post-Trash, The Detroit Metro Times, Ghettoblaster Magazine, and more.