Sxip Shirey

Sxip Shirey is a composer and performer who lives in New York City. His music is beautiful, surprising, deep and will twist your head right around. Ecstatic melody, unimaginable sounds and deep sexy beats played Industrial Flutes, Bullhorn Harmonicas, Regurgitated Music Box, Triple Extended Pennywhistles, Miniature Hand Bell Choir, Obnoxiophone, Glass Bowls With Red Marbles, human beat box and a clutch of curious objects.

Sxip Shirey (pronounced "Skip") is an American composer, performer, and story-teller. He grew up in Athens, Ohio and currently resides in New York City. Shirey is known for inventing instruments out of found objects, and then composing for and playing them. He is the host and producer of Sxip's Hour of Charm, a variety show of cabaret acts. Hour of Charm regularly occurs in New York City, usually at Joe's Pub, but has been taken on the road to the American Repertory Theatre, the Rothbury Music Festival and other venues. Sxip Shirey has played exploding circus organ for the pyro-technic clowns of the Daredevil Opera Company at the Sydney Opera House and the Kennedy Center, industrial flutes for acrobats on mechanical jumping boots at The New Victory Theater on Broadway, tamponophone with The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus at Bonaroo, hillbilly music for gypsies in Transylvania and gypsy music for hillbillies in West Virginia with The Luminescent Orchestrii. Shirey wrote the music for Neil Gaiman's short film Statuesque, first shown December 2009 on Sky 1 in the UK.

“New Yorkers are perpetually trying to explain the musical gazingstock that is Sxip. Their eyes grow big as saucers and they wave their hands around, emitting odd tones of pleasure and emphatic non sequiturs…. before sagging from the effort and saying simply, “I guess you’ll just have to go see him….he conjures a world of infernal calliopes and cotton candy machetes wielded by Gypsy crones with angel feet.” -SF Weekly