DURATIONS
JJJJJerome Ellis, Fred Moten & Brandon Lopez
public records233 Butler St, Brooklyn, NY 11217 · Map
Sat 14 Nov 2026 · 7pm → 10pm · 3 hours
21+ · public records
Press play
Who’s playing3 artists
In the order the promoter lists them.
Set times not published.
the pairs that have met
All 3 pairings on this bill have shared a bill before.
- Fred Moten and Brandon Lopez — 2 shared bills before Saturday, first on Fri 8 Aug 2025.
- JJJJJerome Ellis and Brandon Lopez — 1 shared bill before Saturday, first on Mon 9 Nov 2026.
- JJJJJerome Ellis and Fred Moten — 1 shared bill before Saturday, first on Mon 9 Nov 2026.
Good to know
- “Tickets may be available at the door based on capacity.”
- “A ticket does not guarantee entry; Public Records reserves the right to deny entry to guests that appear intoxicated or do not meet the dress code.”
- “Doors close one hour before end time.”
JJJJJerome Ellis is a Grenadian-Jamaican-American artist, surfer, and person who stutters. Through music, performance, writing, video, and photography, Ellis asks what stuttering can teach us about listening, generosity, and justice. His diverse body of work includes: contemplative soundscapes using saxophone, flute, dulcimer, electronics, and vocals; scores for plays and podcasts; albums combining spoken word with ambient and jazz textures; theatrical explorations involving live music and storytelling; and music-video-poems that seek to transfigure historical archives.
Fred Moten [texts, voice] and Brandon López [bass] make incendiary music for a burning world. Their infamous live shows explore a propulsive, relentless, and massively energetic large-scale developing form. Inimitable poet and cultural theorist Fred Moten creates new conceptual spaces that accommodate emergent forms of Black cultural production, aesthetics, and social life. New York-based composer and bassist Brandon López engages with work, improvisation, and finding new modalities and sonic possibilities on the double bass. Together as a duo, they concern themselves with the necessity for improvisation of navigating the ascending reign of long-institutionalized madness while simultaneously keeping humanity and sanity intact. In 2025, their synergistic mesh in duo was presented on record for the first time on REVISION [TAO Forms], following two acclaimed works on the Reading Group label in trio with Gerald Cleaver.
DURATIONS Festival is a week-long, multi-disciplinary exploration of sound and connection. Now in its fifth iteration, the festival’s programming is its most robust yet, with seven days of music, talks, audiovisual work taking place between Public Records, Pioneer Works, Roulette, and Whitney Museum of American Art.
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Public Records aims to provide a safer space. We reject all forms of discrimination, including racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, sexism, and other aggressive behavior. Consent is paramount. Please exist with respect for yourself and those around you. Anyone found in violation of our rules or safer space policy will be removed from the venue.
To share feedback about an incident, please email hello@publicrecords.nyc or alert a member of our team.
Tickets may be available at the door based on capacity. A ticket does not guarantee entry; Public Records reserves the right to deny entry to guests that appear intoxicated or do not meet the dress code. All large bags and coats must be checked. Doors close one hour before end time.
from the promoter’s listing on Resident Advisor
Who they are
“I have an ongoing practice of spelling my name JJJJJerome Ellis.”
their own biography
the whole biography
I have an ongoing practice of spelling my name JJJJJerome Ellis. I do this because the word I stutter on most frequently is my name. JJJJJerome has the great privilege of being married to poet-ecologist Luísa Black Ellis. They live in a monastery on a creek in traditional Nansemond and Chesepioc territory, aka Norfolk, VA. JJJJJerome dreams of building a sonic bath house! Concepts that organize the artist’s practice include: unknowing, improvisation, fugitivity, illegibility, inheritance, opacity, prayer, gap, contradiction, aporia, eternity, unpredictability, interruption, silence, and devotion. Ellis researches relationships among blackness, disabled speech, divinity, nature, sound, and time. The artist’s body of work includes: contemplative soundscapes using saxophone, flute, dulcimer, electronics, and vocals; scores for plays and podcasts; albums combining spoken word with ambient and jazz textures; theatrical explorations involving live music and storytelling; and music-video-poems that seek to transfigure archival documents. Their debut album, The Clearing (2021), was called “an astonishing, must-listen project” (The Guardian). It was co-produced by NNA Tapes and The Poetry Project, and it was released with an accompanying book published by Wendy’s Subway. Poet/essayist/playwright Claudia Rankine said of the book: “The Clearing is many things: a lyrical celebration of and inquiry into the intersections of blackness, music, and disabled speech; a restless interrogation of linear time; an intimate portrait of the author’s real-time experience of his stutter; a baptism in syllable and sound; and a manuscript illuminated by The Stutter. At its core, Ellis’ metaphor of the clearing becomes a place of possibility and “momentary, transitory, glimpsed liberation.” He invites us to meet him there.” The Clearing won the 2022 Anna Rabinowitz Prize. The artist has received a Fulbright Fellowship (2015), a United States Artists Fellowship (2022), a Foundation for Contemporary Art Grants to Artists Award (2022), a Creative Capital Grant (2022). The artist has received residencies at MacDowell (2019, 2022), Ucross (2021), Lincoln Center Theater (2019), ISSUE Project Room (2021), and La MaMa (2021). JJJJJerome’s work has recently been presented by the Whitney Museum and National Sawdust (New York); Venice Biennale 2023; Haus der Kunst (Munich); Rewire Festival (The Hague); Schauspielhaus Zürich; Chrysler Hall (Norfolk, Virginia); MASS MoCA (North Adams, Massachusetts); the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania); and Oklahoma Contemporary (Oklahoma City). They have received commissions from the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, The Shed, and REDCAT. Ellis is represented by Michaël Gardiner at Heavy Trip, Pascal Mungioli at Stay Service, and Ben Izzo at A3 Artists Agency. The artist’s work has been covered by The Guardian, This American Life, Pitchfork, Artforum, Black Enso, and Christian Science Monitor. Ellis has been a lecturer in Sound Design at Yale University. They received a fabulous music education in the Virginia Beach public school system, and they continued their studies at Columbia University as an undergraduate. Ellis collaborates with James Harrison Monaco as James & Jerome. Their recent work explores themes of border crossing and translation through music-driven narratives. They have received commissions from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Ars Nova.often with Russell E.L. Butler, Abby Echiverri, Breadtree Farms, none of them here on Saturday
Recently at MoMA PS1 · often with Russell E.L. Butler, Abby Echiverri, Breadtree Farms, none of them here on Saturday
Recently at Roulette, MoMA PS1, Honey's · often with Russell E.L. Butler, Abby Echiverri, Breadtree Farms, none of them here on Saturday
names these artists often play with — not on Saturday
- Abby Echiverri1 with Brandon Lopez, 1 with Fred Moten and 1 with JJJJJerome Ellis
- Acid Horizon1 with Brandon Lopez, 1 with Fred Moten and 1 with JJJJJerome Ellis
- Benjamin Krusling1 with Brandon Lopez, 1 with Fred Moten and 1 with JJJJJerome Ellis
- Breadtree Farms1 with Brandon Lopez, 1 with Fred Moten and 1 with JJJJJerome Ellis
- Decoder1 with Brandon Lopez, 1 with Fred Moten and 1 with JJJJJerome Ellis
- Eden Aurelius1 with Brandon Lopez, 1 with Fred Moten and 1 with JJJJJerome Ellis
- K Wata1 with Brandon Lopez, 1 with Fred Moten and 1 with JJJJJerome Ellis
- MORENXXX1 with Brandon Lopez, 1 with Fred Moten and 1 with JJJJJerome Ellis
how this compares
- Median final count, Saturdays at public records197
- Middle half finished between109 and 312
- Past Saturdays at this venue counted191
- Counted so far10 on Thu 8 Oct, 11 on Mon 19 Oct
Counts keep rising until the night; this is where it stands today.
The room
public records — 766 events and 1,571 distinct artists since Aug 2023.
Holds about 300.
Also that night
- The Bunker presents: No Way Back NonstopNowadays — that room books a lot of the same DJs as this one.
- 240 Months of Riotvan ft Panthera Krause, Peter Invasion, Timo Lee, Mike Simonetti (all night)Good Room — that room books a lot of the same DJs as this one.
- Gio Shengelia, Woreq, Tripmastaz, YONIT & Amba, CHKLTESignal — that room books a lot of the same DJs as this one.
how these 3 are connected
- The Bunker presents: No Way Back Nonstop — shares 400 artists with this room, Lovie among them.
- 240 Months of Riotvan ft Panthera Krause, Peter Invasion, Timo Lee, Mike Simonetti (all night) — shares 327 artists with this room, The Carry Nation among them.
- Gio Shengelia, Woreq, Tripmastaz, YONIT & Amba, CHKLTE — shares 238 artists with this room, Cosmo among them.