For nearly 20 years, Chad Kouri studied music and improvisational approaches by participating in non-performing ensembles and open jam sessions, playing mostly on guitar, bass and various homemade instruments and hand percussion, alongside attending performances nearly every other day of the week in Chicago, sometimes visiting as many as six or eight shows between a Friday morning and a Sunday night. Throughout this time, Kouri was better known publicly for his visual art practice –– including commissions from The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Museum of Art and Design New York, and Adidas, as well as solo exhibitions and performances in Los Angeles, New York and Italy. The past 5 years have seen an all-consuming devotion to his music practice. Inspired by discussions with polymath composer, improviser, instrument maker and collage artist Douglas R. Ewart (of AACM fame), Kouri began to integrate improvisations on the instrument of his upbringing, the saxophone, with his visual art practice –– which focuses on the healing powers of color and abstraction. The result of this devotion is Mixed, Kouri’s debut full-length, which came out JUNE 20.