An album of guitar music stemming from a dance performance of the same name, choreographed by Esmé Boyce and presented in September, 2014, by Esmé Boyce Dance at Dixon Place, New York, NY. Music and words by Cody Boyce, with narration by actor Ted Levine.

“My parents were driving from L.A. to New York, in a cross-country move that would reunite our family. They were in Oklahoma, or at least my mom thinks so, when I texted her, “What’s it like there?” Her reply was, “Dark and Pretty Flat.” Referencing the genre of the Western, this piece is about an American attachment to vast lands, about great horizontal journeys and about how one can feel like a foreigner in one’s own homeland. My brother, Cody, and I were processing memories and emotions involved with the second relocation of our family. As children, we moved from Chicago to LA, a life-altering jolt. Somehow the second move, leaving LA, was quieter as both of us were adults living in New York when it happened but it was equally strange. Dark and Pretty Flat, in many ways, is our way of acknowledging a big chunk of our lives, our formative years, spent in the West.” — Esmé Boyce