Sean McCann is a Los Angeles-based composer, experimental musician, and audio engineer whose output has included serene ambient pieces, abstract chamber works, and ecstatic, joyous pieces for strings and electronic feedback. After establishing himself as a drone/experimental musician during the second half of the 2000s, releasing numerous cassettes and CD-Rs such as Phylum Sigh (2009) and Open Resolve (2010), his post-2012 output has shifted toward modern classical composition and ensemble works, including Ten Impressions for Piano & Strings (2015) and Music for Public Ensemble (2016). He has maintained a busy schedule with numerous releases on dozens of labels, as well as extensive audio engineering credits, in addition to running the acclaimed Recital label. Born in 1988, McCann first began issuing self-released cassettes of improvised experimental music in 2007. He quickly became a fixture of the underground cassette and CD-R scene, with a staggering amount of releases on labels such as Digitalis, Stunned Records, and DNT Records. He co-founded a label called Roll Over Rover in 2008, which released recordings by McCann as well as Ugly Husbands and Horse Marriage. McCann's first vinyl release was the 2010 LP Chances Are Staying, issued by DNT Records. Several McCann albums were released on vinyl in 2011, including Open Resolve (an Orange Milk Records reissue of an earlier tape), Sincere World (Amethyst Sunset), and The Capital (Aguirre Records). McCann contributed strings to several songs on Zola Jesus' 2011 album Conatus, and began a prolific run of engineering recordings by other musicians, including many releases on the Australian label Preservation. In 2011, McCann established Recital, a label dedicated to modern classical and experimental music. The label's first two releases, the limited CD-R Prelusion (later given a vinyl reissue by Root Strata in 2013) and Vanity Fair (a 2012 collaboration LP with Matthew Sullivan), were McCann's final electronic drone/ambient albums. Starting with 2013's Music for Private Ensemble, his work consisted of more acoustic instruments such as strings and pianos, as well as musique concrète tape manipulation and vocal experiments. McCann collaborated with Root Strata founder Maxwell August Croy for an LP titled I, which was released by Students of Decay in 2014. This was followed by McCann's calm, immersive solo album Ten Impressions for Piano & Strings, released by Recital in early 2015. A vastly different McCann album titled A Castle Popping also appeared on Recital that year, focusing on vocal experiments as well as piano and small-ensemble pieces. McCann continued working on his ambitious, long-in-the-making double LP Music for Public Ensemble, and invited listeners to contribute recordings of their voices for inclusion on the album. The album was released in November of 2016, and featured contributions from Ian William Craig, Maxwell August Croy, Graham Lambkin, and others. A second collaboration with Croy, simply titled II, appeared in 2017. Solo LP Puck, incorporating personal recordings from the late 2000s as well as spoken text and chamber compositions, was released in 2019. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi