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"The Bloom of Performance" receives an 8/10 at PopMatters: "Trecka has crafted a sound that is very much his own."
Mark Trecka is a Paris-based singer, sound artist, and writer.
'The Bloom of Performance' is his latest full-length, released on February 23, 2024 via Beacon Sound –– with support from Radio Alhara.
Writing for PopMatters, Chris Ingalls describes "The Bloom of Performance" as a "downbeat type of art-punk that recalls earlier artists and eras but is still very much forward-thinking." He draws comparisons to David Bowie's Berlin Trilogy and late-period Scott Walker, but says, "these are mainly surface comparisons that dissipate slightly as the listener becomes more involved in the songs and sees them for what they are – the work of an artist who is forging a unique path.
Other solo recordings include 'Loping / gestures,' (Beacon Sound), which Trecka describes it as "a collaged arc of song and sound." Prior to that, 'Implication' (Whited Sepulchre Records) was released in October 2021 and was preceded by 'Acknowledgment' in May 2021 as well as 'In Ellipsis Landscapes' (2020, The Flenser), and 'Everything Falling Crosses Over' (2019, Orphanology).
In addition to recorded music, performance, and writing, Trecka has been active in broadcast experiments, working with Raven Chacon's Radio Coyote, and is a resident artist with Radio Alhara.
Trecka’s writing has appeared in the "Los Angeles Review of Books", "The New Inquiry", "Salon", "Vice" and elsewhere. He has collaborated with Susan Alcorn, Raven Chacon, Sam Skarstad (Yellow Eyes), Midwife, A-Y/dancers, Audra Wolowiec, Drekka, Walt McClements, Chaz Prymek (Lake Mary) and others.
Trecka founded Pillars and Tongues in 2007 and toured and recorded with Dark Dark Dark from 2009 to 2014. He is a lead organizer of the Beacon Prison Books Project, a volunteer-run solidarity program that provides free books to people incarcerated throughout New York State, which Trecka co-founded in 2020 while living in the Hudson Valley. He was born in Chicago.
