Sudden Wealth with Jason Dodge
Under Gemini — Noelle Kocot
Under Gemini is a new twelve-inch record by Sudden Wealth with Jason Dodge, based on Noelle Kocot’s extraordinary two-volume poem of the same name. First published in 2020 by FIVEHUNDREDPLACES, the poetry press founded by Dodge in 2012, Under Gemini was issued in a single edition of 500 copies. The poem’s movement between intimacy and estrangement lends itself to Sudden Wealth’s distinctive approach to spoken language and sound. Recorded live on the Danish island of Møn, the record places Dodge’s reading of Kocot’s words within an arrangement of bass, guitar and electronic composition, allowing the text to emerge not simply as recitation but as a volatile acoustic event. Voice, language and instrumentation repeatedly converge and separate: the poem is carried by Dodge’s intonation while being interrupted, agitated and expanded by sounds that appear to gather around it.
Sudden Wealth was founded by Chris Evans in 2022 as a collaboration with Morten Norbye Halvorsen, Graham Kelly and invited poets and artists who use the spoken word as a central element of their work. The project considers how the flux of subjectivity within language might be shaped and reimagined through a triangulation of written composition, vocal intonation and extrinsic sound.
For Under Gemini, Dodge is joined by Evans on bass, Halvorsen on electronics and Kelly on guitar. Arranged and mixed by Evans and Halvorsen, and mastered by Halvorsen, the two extended tracks do not illustrate Kocot’s poem or provide it with a conventional musical accompaniment. Instead, they establish a shifting environment in which speech is exposed to rhythm, duration, repetition and interference. The recording draws attention to the space between the fixity of publication and the singular, time-bound event of a voice speaking.
Born and raised in Brooklyn and now based in New Jersey, Noelle Kocot is the author of numerous acclaimed collections, including Soul in Space and Ascent of the Mothers. Their work has received support and recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts, The American Poetry Review, the Lannan Foundation, the Fund for Poetry and the Academy of American Poets, and they serve as Poet Laureate of Pemberton Borough.
Published jointly by Slimvolume and Winona, Under Gemini appears as a limited edition of 150 twelve-inch records, comprising two tracks at 33 rpm. The offset-printed sleeve has been designed by Chris Evans, with every copy individually airbrushed by the artist. Moving from Kocot’s original poem, through its limited publication by FIVEHUNDREDPLACES, to Dodge’s live vocal performance and Sudden Wealth’s collective sound composition, Under Gemini extends the work through successive acts of interpretation, transmission and dispersal.
Cover art by Chris Evans.
Vocals: Jason Dodge.
Electronics: Morten Norbye Halvorsen.
Bass: Chris Evans.
Guitar: Graham Kelly.
Arranged and mixed by Chris Evans and Morten Norbye Halvorsen.
Twelve-inch vinyl, two tracks, 33rpm.
Edition of 150: offset printed sleeve, each copy individually airbrushed.
ISBN: 978-1-910516-37-9
Published by Slimvolume and Winona, 2026.