Molly Joyce: State Change
Better Company Records
Anyone recovering from a life-changing accident need look no further than Molly Joyce for inspiration. Born in Pittsburgh in 1992, she experienced a car crash in 1999 that led to years of reconstructive surgeries to her left hand. But instead of treating the disability as an incapacitating handicap, she accepted the challenging hand life dealt and found ways to not only survive but prosper. To perform, she uses an instrument, an electric vintage toy organ, that suits her physically, and, of course, the integration of vocals and electronics into her production methodology and creative practice has also been pivotal. Three years after her 2017 debut EP, Lean Back and Release, she released her well-received debut album, Breaking and Entering, and in 2022 the album Perspective. Joyce's pieces have appeared on other artists' albums as well and have been performed by orchestras and ensembles in the United States and Sweden. As if such accomplishments weren't impressive enough, Joyce is a graduate of The Juilliard School, the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, and Yale School of Music and is currently a Dean's Doctoral Fellow at the University of Virginia.
To a degree perhaps greater than ever before, Joyce addresses the physical road she's traveled on State Change, which uses surgical records as musical lyrics and whose titles reference key dates in her medical journey. The set begins, naturally enough, with “August 6, 1999,” the date of the car crash, and opens with what sound like the tones of a hospital bedside monitor to help establish context and mark the moment when her life profoundly and irrevocably changed. Joyce utilized a number of different music technologies (the MUGIC [Music/User Gesture Interface Control] device, motion capture systems, Bela, and the touch-sensored KAiKU glove) to generate her electro-acoustic meditations, and brought William Brittelle aboard as producer.
In that haunting opener, Joyce intones breathily as she catalogues the damage her body suffered (“No function / No flexor / No extensor”), with sine tones functioning as a droning soundtrack to her clinical self-assessment. State Change then swells aggressively in the subsequent “August 9, 1999” when Joyce howls alongside throbbing electronics and organ; as her voice swoops demonically, the effect calls to mind the similarly disturbing wail of Karin Dreijer (aka Fever Ray). Initially inhabiting a middle ground between the opening tracks, “August 13-16, 1999” reinstates the breathiness of the first song's vocal whilst perpetuating the macabre tone of the second with electronics pulsating so aggressively they seem poised to explode into Merzbow-like shards. Things do take a violent turn when her voice alters in a manner that recalls Regan MacNeil's devilish roar in The Exorcist after possession.
As powerful as “August 9, 1999” and “August 13-16, 1999” are, the recording's more restrained settings leave as strong an impression. To cite a particularly beautiful example, Joyce's largely natural singing voice proves affecting when heard against a delicate, atmospheric backdrop in “November 24, 1999.” Lovely too are the ethereal meditations “April 19, 2000” and “October 26, 2001,” which exude the kind of dreaminess and intimacy one associates with Liz Harris's Grouper project.
The seven-song release is only thirty minutes long; it also, however, possesses the substantial impact of a standard full-length. While it does confront the devastating impact of her accident head-on, State Change is ultimately uplifting in its message and tone. However impossible it might seem to recover from debilitating events, Joyce shows it's possible indeed, and the remarkable life she's leading incontrovertibly testifies to that. It's all the more fitting, then, that the July release date of State Change coincides with Disability Pride Month, which promotes inclusion and accessibility and recognizes the value and potential of people with disabilities.July 2025