Unfold is a semi-improvised project conceived by composer Alice Humphries and percussionist Thea Rossen. Using found sounds, prepared piano, electric guitar, and percussion, they seek to find beauty in unusual timbral combinations, and haunting melodies rise out of lush textures.

Glass Heart, Debut Album - Available here

On 'Glass Heart' Unfold filter melodic fragments and improvisational moments, looking to weave these materials into music that coalesces around singular points of focus. The duo explore space, both temporally and acoustically, and restraint, finding ways to work with a limited set of materials and manage their sound making with great care over time. Throughout Glass Heart the listener is presented with the deep resonance of the bass drum, which provides a bed for sparse moments of melody to flourish, flowing from the prepared piano and open stringed scordatura electric guitar. Moments of sustain and near silence are punctuated with bold strikes of the bass drum that can be felt in the chest and highlight the scale in the work, the small fragile sounds of glass, marbles, seeds and bells rendered as such in relation to the drum. True to their name, Unfold work through attention and care to unravel, unpack and unfold the vast aural phenomenon emergent from simple gestures and present a sonic landscape for the listeners' patient investigation.

Alice Humphries — prepared piano, guitar, percussion
Thea Rossen — percussion

Recorded & mixed by Kieran Kenderessy at Loop
Mastered by Dan O'Connor @ENCODERSound
Artwork by Olivia Davies

Released 2023

Tone List

Review - Ellington Jazz Club - Tuesday 26th April 2022

“Alice Humphries & Thea Rossen draw from the worlds of modern and contemporary classical music, as well as ambient music, in their new project unfold. They use tabletop string instruments, found object percussion and piano, bringing their refined musicality into fragile, textural music. Their new work, supported by 2022’s Audible Edge Festival commissions, threads haunting melodies though the delicate sound-worlds they create together.”

See Saw Mag Review

…”It was a mesmerising and captivating experience, highlighting two very different acts. First, unfold – composer/performer Alice Humphries and percussionist Thea Rossen – with a piece commissioned by Tone List and supported by a crowdfunded campaign set up by the label. The piece, which lasted the whole set, had large elements of improvisation guided by preconceived cues and textures. It displayed delicate interactions of call-and-response between the two performers, mostly led by Humphries on the prepared piano and her alternately tuned electric guitar. Rossen complemented beautifully, exploring the sonic possibilities of her bass drum through rubbing rather than hitting, and created a soundscape by using glass jars, shaking them or dropping materials into them. 

Humphries’ minimalist personal interplay between piano and guitar created immense motion and tension within a static atmosphere. Both performers were disciplined in maintaining controlled and focused dynamics, keeping the audience right on the edge of their seats.”…

Limelight Review
…”Unfold is an amplified percussion duo consisting of Alice Humphries and Thea Rossen. The pair began and ended by rolling marbles in tuned glass jars, but between this Rossen used the amplification and sonic distortion offered by placing objects on a large drumskin, while Humphries plucked, bowed and struck scattered notes on the piano while strumming sparingly on an electric guitar. The sounds were delicate and generally widely spaced even when overlapping. As with Karlheinz Stockhausen and others, it was the microphone and amplifier that were the true lead instruments, turning banal or tiny noises into richly detailed motifs lifted out of the surrounding sound world. I have certainly heard performances like this before, but Unfold was beautifully executed and it was a joy to hear such work live in Perth now Louise Devenish, Decibel and others so rarely perform here.”…