Chicago-based sound artist Lia Kohl has shared three new tracks from her forthcoming album, Various Small Whistles and a Song, set for release on November 14 via Dauw. The new tracks feature contributions from Patrick Shiroishi, Corey Smith, Ellie Mejía, and Anna Fox.
The album draws its unique concept from Ed Ruscha’s 1964 artist book, Various Small Fires and Milk. Mirroring the book’s structure—15 photographs of fire and one of milk—Kohl assembled 15 field recordings of whistles captured between 2016 and 2025, plus one central song. These are transformed into 16 short-form compositions, with Kohl layering synthesizers, cello, drum loops, and toy instruments over the raw audio.
Today’s three-part suite highlights this collaborative, everyday focus. Lead track “Voting Line, Downtown Chicago” uses a recording Kohl made while waiting to vote in the 2024 presidential election. She recalls a person whistling in the marble lobby, “adding levity to our collective anxious solemnity.”
The subsequent tracks feature recordings submitted by friends: Patrick Shiroishi whistling on “Walking Home, Los Angeles,” and the trio of Corey Smith, Ellie Mejía, and Anna Fox on “Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, Illinois.”
Kohl notes she’s “always been captivated by whistling,” describing it as “musical but often a bit unconscious… tender and human.” Like Ruscha’s photographs, Kohl’s sonic vignettes recast these moments to illuminate the “banal and wondrous spectacle of everyday life.”
Lia Kohl will perform a hometown album release show at Constellation in Chicago on November 14, followed by a listening party at TUSK on November 16.
Tour Dates
November 14 @ Constellation – Chicago, IL (album release)
November 16 @ TUSK – Chicago, IL (listening party)
March 12 @ Public Records – Brooklyn, NY