SBowe

Sbowe is the solo project of Rachel Icenogle, a versatile cellist and composer based in Calabria, Italy. Live-looped cello, vocals, and effects overlap to towering heights. Sbowe thrives in the scratchy, creaky, whirly sounds the cello can make, layering diverse musical textures in a lush groundwork for wild fables about insects and impressionistic stories about human batteries.

“But her creativity knows no bounds, with her cello last night in Taurianova…she traced paths of sound through the forests of imagination, guiding listeners towards unknown lands and unexplored dreams, enhanced by the live drawings of Alessia Moretti…enchanted us, transporting spectators on journeys through imaginary worlds and timeless stories. The album, Bat Hat, is destined to be a work of sonic art, a symphony of colors and emotions that paints the sky of our minds with brushstrokes of pure magic.” - Filippo Andreacchio, Taurianova Talk March 2024 (translated from Italian)

“Utilizing electric cello (Rachel Icenogle) and programmed drums (Adrian Harpham), the two tracks here create massive, textural, exquisite movements that feel poetic as they feel intentional. It’s like we’re observing both the gorgeous and tense moments of nature unfold in real time, punctuated by a variety of cello sounds. Calm meets the storm with Sbowe’s “Morimus.”” - Ben Slowey, Breaking & Entering Milwaukee November 2022

Beyond her work as Sbowe, Rachel is the composer and musical director for the Italian puppet theater Company Aiello. Specializing in multi-disciplinary projects and improvisation, she has collaborated with theater, dance, film, and storytelling makers in both the USA and Italy.

Sbowe’s first full-length album Bat Hat is available via Exotic Fever Records. On Bat Hat, nature and our place as humans in it takes front and center stage, while themes of impostor syndrome and grief-reckoning also wind through its songs. Kate Wakefield of the band Lung remarked that the album is, “a mysterious, intriguing journey through the woods of [Sbowe’s] brain.” To celebrate its release, Sbowe toured for six weeks in the spring of 2024, with 21 performances in southern Italy and Midwest/East Coast USA.

“…you can hear the influence of the boldly unpredictable experimentation that Icenogle offered as part of late Milwaukee baroque rock band John The Savage. Opener “P.S.” is an assured, cinematic opener made from sparse parts (cello, viola, violin, vocals, accordion), with Icenogle’s soundscapes expanding across 45 minutes to incorporate peculiar electronic percussion, tuba, clarinet and more — the music ebbing and flowing until the powerhouse, eye-opening penultimate track “Seed.”” - Piet Levy, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel April 2024

“There is a breathless intimacy in the performance of [Seed]. The delicacy of the cello pairs with Icenogle's own voice to create a song that feels, at first, like it's being performed, just for you, in a closet…The song itself begins with a whisper and builds to a torrent of layering strings, vocals, and other sounds (I think there's a clarinet). This isn't classical music, but it holds a little bit of the sweeping passion that sometimes comes from that genre.” - Emily Beane, WTSQ.org Top8 April 2024

releases

Banner video: Flavia De Marco

Banner photo: Chris Sikich/Costume: Sebastienne Mundheim