Elevator Songs
Roomful Of Teeth & Gabriel Kahane
Elevator Songs is the first collaboration between multi-Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth and singer-songwriter/composer Gabriel Kahane, released on April 3, 2026 via Octoverse Media. Kahane wrote, arranged, and produced the entire work, which was recorded in a four-day session in December 2024 with engineer Joseph Lorge. The album is built around a high-concept premise: a fictional, interdimensional hotel in which the elevator travels freely through time and space, stopping on floors where guests grapple with their own private worlds. As Roomful of Teeth describes it, the work features nine character-driven songs — one written for each member of the ensemble to sing as a featured soloist — bookended by two songs performed by Kahane himself, who acts as a kind of metaphysical concierge or ghostly doorman. The characters range from a newlywed overwhelmed by the American Southwest's landscape, to a man in 1980s Manhattan writing a eulogy for an AIDS victim, to a near-future Texas influencer-turned-spiritual-guru recording a podcast, to a U.S. service member confronting PTSD.
What makes the album particularly striking is that Kahane — in a deliberately counterintuitive move — wrote pop-leaning music for an ensemble whose reputation rests on avant-garde techniques including throat singing, yodeling, and extended vocal approaches. GBH Classical called it practically "an act of the avant-garde" for Roomful of Teeth to step into something so melodically accessible, with "fizzy hooks" and "slippery chord changes" that go down easy while leaving vivid, lasting impressions. Kahane also provides piano, guitar, and violin (via ensemble member Eliza Bagg) and vibraphone (Jodie Landau) for additional color. NPR praised the album as a rich and immersive experience, and The Big Takeover called it "a remarkable piece of work" that "reveals new facets with every spin" — a panoramic, emotionally turbulent collage of contemporary anxieties, dark humor, and human tenderness that sounds, ultimately, like nothing else.
Elevator Songs is the first collaboration between multi-Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth and singer-songwriter/composer Gabriel Kahane, released on April 3, 2026 via Octoverse Media. Kahane wrote, arranged, and produced the entire work, which was recorded in a four-day session in December 2024 with engineer Joseph Lorge. The album is built around a high-concept premise: a fictional, interdimensional hotel in which the elevator travels freely through time and space, stopping on floors where guests grapple with their own private worlds. As Roomful of Teeth describes it, the work features nine character-driven songs — one written for each member of the ensemble to sing as a featured soloist — bookended by two songs performed by Kahane himself, who acts as a kind of metaphysical concierge or ghostly doorman. The characters range from a newlywed overwhelmed by the American Southwest's landscape, to a man in 1980s Manhattan writing a eulogy for an AIDS victim, to a near-future Texas influencer-turned-spiritual-guru recording a podcast, to a U.S. service member confronting PTSD.
What makes the album particularly striking is that Kahane — in a deliberately counterintuitive move — wrote pop-leaning music for an ensemble whose reputation rests on avant-garde techniques including throat singing, yodeling, and extended vocal approaches. GBH Classical called it practically "an act of the avant-garde" for Roomful of Teeth to step into something so melodically accessible, with "fizzy hooks" and "slippery chord changes" that go down easy while leaving vivid, lasting impressions. Kahane also provides piano, guitar, and violin (via ensemble member Eliza Bagg) and vibraphone (Jodie Landau) for additional color. NPR praised the album as a rich and immersive experience, and The Big Takeover called it "a remarkable piece of work" that "reveals new facets with every spin" — a panoramic, emotionally turbulent collage of contemporary anxieties, dark humor, and human tenderness that sounds, ultimately, like nothing else.
Elevator Songs
Roomful Of Teeth & Gabriel Kahane
Elevator Songs is the first collaboration between multi-Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth and singer-songwriter/composer Gabriel Kahane, released on April 3, 2026 via Octoverse Media. Kahane wrote, arranged, and produced the entire work, which was recorded in a four-day session in December 2024 with engineer Joseph Lorge. The album is built around a high-concept premise: a fictional, interdimensional hotel in which the elevator travels freely through time and space, stopping on floors where guests grapple with their own private worlds. As Roomful of Teeth describes it, the work features nine character-driven songs — one written for each member of the ensemble to sing as a featured soloist — bookended by two songs performed by Kahane himself, who acts as a kind of metaphysical concierge or ghostly doorman. The characters range from a newlywed overwhelmed by the American Southwest's landscape, to a man in 1980s Manhattan writing a eulogy for an AIDS victim, to a near-future Texas influencer-turned-spiritual-guru recording a podcast, to a U.S. service member confronting PTSD.
What makes the album particularly striking is that Kahane — in a deliberately counterintuitive move — wrote pop-leaning music for an ensemble whose reputation rests on avant-garde techniques including throat singing, yodeling, and extended vocal approaches. GBH Classical called it practically "an act of the avant-garde" for Roomful of Teeth to step into something so melodically accessible, with "fizzy hooks" and "slippery chord changes" that go down easy while leaving vivid, lasting impressions. Kahane also provides piano, guitar, and violin (via ensemble member Eliza Bagg) and vibraphone (Jodie Landau) for additional color. NPR praised the album as a rich and immersive experience, and The Big Takeover called it "a remarkable piece of work" that "reveals new facets with every spin" — a panoramic, emotionally turbulent collage of contemporary anxieties, dark humor, and human tenderness that sounds, ultimately, like nothing else.
Elevator Songs is the first collaboration between multi-Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth and singer-songwriter/composer Gabriel Kahane, released on April 3, 2026 via Octoverse Media. Kahane wrote, arranged, and produced the entire work, which was recorded in a four-day session in December 2024 with engineer Joseph Lorge. The album is built around a high-concept premise: a fictional, interdimensional hotel in which the elevator travels freely through time and space, stopping on floors where guests grapple with their own private worlds. As Roomful of Teeth describes it, the work features nine character-driven songs — one written for each member of the ensemble to sing as a featured soloist — bookended by two songs performed by Kahane himself, who acts as a kind of metaphysical concierge or ghostly doorman. The characters range from a newlywed overwhelmed by the American Southwest's landscape, to a man in 1980s Manhattan writing a eulogy for an AIDS victim, to a near-future Texas influencer-turned-spiritual-guru recording a podcast, to a U.S. service member confronting PTSD.
What makes the album particularly striking is that Kahane — in a deliberately counterintuitive move — wrote pop-leaning music for an ensemble whose reputation rests on avant-garde techniques including throat singing, yodeling, and extended vocal approaches. GBH Classical called it practically "an act of the avant-garde" for Roomful of Teeth to step into something so melodically accessible, with "fizzy hooks" and "slippery chord changes" that go down easy while leaving vivid, lasting impressions. Kahane also provides piano, guitar, and violin (via ensemble member Eliza Bagg) and vibraphone (Jodie Landau) for additional color. NPR praised the album as a rich and immersive experience, and The Big Takeover called it "a remarkable piece of work" that "reveals new facets with every spin" — a panoramic, emotionally turbulent collage of contemporary anxieties, dark humor, and human tenderness that sounds, ultimately, like nothing else.