Aimée Niemann - Matt Smiley
Afficionados of this label will recognize the names Aimée Niemann and Matt Smiley. Matt mans the bass for SeFa LoCo and RACCA Trio, while Aimée was the featured guest artist, playing violin on SeFa LoCo’s Stare album. Their long shared personal history has resulted in a dynamic duo album, Far Time Being.
Their musical collaboration began over a decade ago in Greeley, Colorado. They’d worked together in the Northern Colorado Cobra Ensemble and Mad Ranks Quartet, as a singer-songwriter duo and as a trio with percussionist Ron Coulter. They’ve worked with graphic scores, open compositions and their own writing, spanning a range of genres. Their shared musical language sits in the overlap of those practices and free improvisation. Aimée lives in New York City, while Matt calls Denver home. They meet roughly annually to play and record, picking up where they left off.
Far Time Being was born in open improvisation—short, gestural, conversational pieces and sketches, shaped through close listening and response.
Matt has a multi-layered resume, despite his youth. His career has merged deep roots in the jazz bass tradition with modern explorations of sound, texture, and improvisation from the world of contemporary composition, making him frequent collaborator of creative musicians across musical genres. He’s toured nationally and internationally, appearing on stages and in university residencies in the United States, Costa Rica, and the Netherlands. He’s performed with bandleaders and composers David Murray, Terrell Stafford, Greg Osby, Vinny Golia, Tony Malaby, and Sam Newsome, among others. Matt leads frequent workshops and lessons on improvisation, jazz bass, and composition, working with educational partners including Denver School of the Arts, the Gift of Jazz, and Casper College.
Matt completed a doctorate and teaches at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Matt was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship and Aaron Copland Fellowship in 2024. He’s released 13 solo and collaborative albums.
Aimée is a violinist and improviser who investigates sound through its intersection with movement. Rooted in experimental music, dance, and theater, they compose graphic scores that serve as frameworks for interdisciplinary invention and the unearthing of new sounds. As a founding member of Diaphanous Ensemble with Che Buford and Abby Swidler, Aimée presented work on climate change and queerness at venues including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the 2025 Prospect New Orleans Triennial. They collaborate with artist Cecilia Biagini on large-scale multimedia installations and outdoor performance art. Additional collaborators have included Leilehua Lanzilotti, Jessica Pavone, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Kirin McElwain and Paul Elwood. In 2024, Aimée performed a nonstop 24-hour realization of Erik Satie’s Vexations at Canada Gallery with Marija Kovačević. Their record Thoughts from the Future (Gold Bolus) was named a Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Music pick in May 2024.
As an educator and guest artist, Aimée has held positions at NYU Steinhardt, Third Street Music School Settlement, Lucy Moses School, and Brooklyn Conservatory, Dartmouth College, UC Boulder, Manhattan School of Music and Salisbury University. They have trained over 50 teachers in improvisation-based pedagogy.
“A wide sonic landscape... filled with unexpected twists and turns from the frenetic to tranquil, austere to densely baroque, all firmly in the abstract. A sound-phile’s delight!”
“A cohesive collection of unique, spontaneous compositions grounded in a long-lived musical partnership… an exciting exploration of sounds.”