Zeena Parkins is a harpist-mult-instrumentalist-composer-improviser-eductor who pioneered contemporary harp practices by employing extended techniques, object preparations, and electronic processing that re-defined the instrument’s capacities. Dam Against the Spring Tide offers two cycles of compositions inspired by discoveries she made combing through the archives of German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and media theorist Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) in Berlin. The title of the album is a quote from Benjamin’s essay on collecting, Unpacking my library: “…This or any other procedure is merely a dam against the spring tide of memories which surges toward any collector as he contemplates his possessions. Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the
