The Cedar Presents
GORDI + S. CAREY
Thursday, September 24, 2026 / Doors: 7:00 PM / Show: 7:30 PM
All Ages
Seated
$25 Advance, $27 Day of Show
*For Cedar Presented shows, a $4 facility fee is included in the ticket price (Ticket fee info here).
This is a seated show with general admission, first-come-first-served seating. The Cedar is happy to reserve seats for patrons who require special seating accommodations. To request access accommodations, please go to our Access page.
For Cedar presented shows, online ticket sales typically end one hour before the door time, and then, based on availability, tickets will be available at the door. Tickets purchased at the door will include a $1 Eventbrite fee.
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about this show
Gordi’s trademark is tender, cerebral pop songs full of poignant moments and surprising amounts of joy. Sean Carey’s songs explore themes of nature and sustainability, draw on jazz roots, and feature heartfelt, emotive lyricism. Please join us for an intimate evening with two incredible songwriters.
gordi
“Being surrounded by death made me think about how beautiful life is.”
As a final-year medical student, Sophie Payten (aka Gordi) learned to certify death. Beyond just what we see in the movies – checking for a pulse, hearing the monotone of a flatline, announcing the time – the process involves observing a person who's no longer responding. As she looked at their still, waxy skin, Payten says “It made me think of plasticine - that soft, malleable substance, that we can shape and mould in our hands, until we leave it to set in place. I thought about all the ways we are like plasticine in life - how forces we can’t control, contort us into shapes, stretch us thin, and test our resilience. But sometimes, heart-wrenching change can be a thing of beauty.”
These moments of transition - the anguish and the ecstasy of change - are captured on her new album, ‘Like Plasticine’, which opens with the gritty, entirely iPhone-recorded GD (Goddamn), a reminder of the things we do to carry on and endure – Look around. Slow down. Call your mum. Over sparse, distorted synths, Payten sounds like she's trapped underwater or pressed against a window, looking in on the lives she is wondering how to step back into.
Writing the album was a process of intense excavation. Payten took herself to Sydney for a pair of week-long residencies six months apart – first at Phoenix Central Park and the other at a church, both operated by arts patron Judith Nielson. "I think that whole first week I felt like an exposed nerve, because I was facing everything I'd been really actively not thinking about for a long time. I was like, alright, it's time. I'm ready for it to explode."
Inside the vault, along with the tender, cerebral pop that's become a Gordi trademark, a surprising amount of joy sprang out. She'd written Peripheral Lover in Nashville a little while earlier, imagining she might give the song to another artist. It was so celebratory and effusive, she says, "it just really didn't feel like me on the last record". But time changed that, and the pop anthem, one that blends yearning, sensitive lyrics with a contagious synth beat, positions Payten alongside Robyn, Róisín Murphy, and other masters of the craft.
S. Carey
S. Carey is the moniker of Eau Claire, Wisconsin-based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Sean Carey, commonly recognized as the drummer, backing vocalist, and secondlongest serving member of Bon Iver. Over the past decade and a half, Carey has fostered his flourishing solo career via themes of nature and sustainability, songwriting built from jazz beginnings, and heartfelt, emotive lyricism. His latest release, Watercress, adds to a discography of four full-length releases, two EPs, and countless collaborations, including Unbound with Bizhiki and Shadowlands with John Raymond. As S. Carey developed his songwriting and producing talents, he was commissioned by Will Arnett to write the track "Rose Petals" for his Netflix series Flaked, co-wrote "Hold The Light" with Dierks Bentley for feature-length film Only The Brave, contributed to Sufjan Stevens' album Carrie & Lowell, and has produced for and written with the likes of Low, Mike Kinsella, Pieta Brown, Gia Margaret, and Ed Tullett of Novo Amor. Carey and his adept band of longtime friends and collaborators celebrate their 15th year of touring everywhere from international headline shows to intimate living room performances to performing arts center stages.