Joshua Abrams (musician)

While living in Philadelphia in the late 1980s, Abrams was a member of Square Roots, a street music group that developed into The Roots. He moved to Evanston, Illinois in 1991, and played in Chicago house bands for several years before forming Town & Country in 1998 with Ben Vida, Liz Payne, and Jim Dorling. Abrams was the house bass player at Fred Anderson's Velvet Lounge and for several years he played a weekly club date with Tortoise's John Herndon and Jeff Parker.^[3] He was a member of Mike Reed's Loose Assembly and Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble.^[4][5] In 2003, he played bass on Godspeed You! Black Emperor's album Yanqui U.X.O..^[6] He has worked as a studio musician on recordings made in Chicago, such as Jandek's Chicago Wednesday; Bonnie "Prince" Billy's Beware and albums from Chicago musicians such as Joan of Arc, David Grubbs, and Sam Prekop.^[7][8][9]

In the early 00's, Delmark released his acoustic quartet album Cipher and Lucky Kitchen released his solo soundscape albums.^[3] He recorded albums under the name "Reminder" for Prefuse 73's Eastern Developments label and Easel.^[3][10] In 2010, Abrams started the band Natural Information Society releasing albums by Eremite Records.^[11][3] In 2018 he received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award.^[7]

As a film composer, Abrams has written music for director Steve James and for Life Itself, The Interrupters, The Trials of Muhammad Ali, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, and the documentary series America to Me.^[1][12][13] He performed and composed music for the play At Twilight by Simon Starling, with Theaster Gates at Documenta 13, and in exhibitions by Lisa Alvarado.^[7][14][11]