There There Now Now
There there, Now now… the phrase is so strange and vague. Why would you say that to someone in distress? “There there, now now” …it’s odd right? But it could be a koan.
This allowing for change/chance is really how this album came to be; telling the inner critic to leave me be for a minute while I continue to follow the thread of my intuition… Picked up the bass clarinet one day, started making a vocal loop a different day, come back a day later and see if there is something to add. Improvisations were ongoing and sometimes fragmentary.
Additional instruments were often laid on top of existing, free-time solo recordings. Edits were made later and drums added by Peter Valsamis much later.
There is one ancient recording made back in 2000 with the intention of it being used on the never-realized Better Daze (Ubiquity) record. It was in improvisation by Mike Silverman (acoustic bass and effects), Peter Valsamis and myself in my San Francisco studio with coaching from Andrew Jervis. This edited trio improv became the piece on the album called “Wobbly”. There is something to be said for letting a piece marinate for over 20 years.
Artwork by Paul Scriver and Loumis
I don’t know what is going to happen next, all decisions will be made in the present in any case. There there, now now… don’t think too much about how things will unfold – you don’t know now, but you will when you get there.”
Tracklist
1 – December Falls
2 – Rockaby Empty Cradle
3 – Wobbly
4 – Lament
5 – January Thaw
6 – Shoulder Month
7 – April Rhythm
8 – Tributary
9 – Bamboo Forest
10 – Holy In This Minute
Selected tracks
Here are few tracks that cannot be heard on the Bandcamp page just yet. I thought you might want to hear some more in advance of the launch:
January Thaw:
The title refers the feeling that space was opening for new sounds to come into my life. The searching quality of the bass clarinet is a sibling to the lonesome strata of flutes heard in another tune December Falls (available on the album); the two pieces are spiritual echoes of one-another.
Wobbly:
Features Mike Silverman (AKA “That One Guy) on acoustic bass and stomp boxes and Peter on drums. I played processed Wurlitzer piano. It’s an artifact from early in the 2000s. Recorded in my cramped SF recording studio in preparation for a never finished follow up to the first Better Daze album I created with Andrew Jervis. Andrew was there in the studio with us, serving up positivity and vision. This live-to-DAT stereo mix of our studio improvisation had some real electricity and finally found its way here. The title refers to Mike’s ridiculously rubbery-sounding bass.
Shoulder Month:
This came together in pieces. First there was the guitar bit, some clapping and then bass. I got to a certain point and didn’t know how to complete it so I built an extension and then eventually it needed voice and lyrics.
Lament:
This piece was improvised. I had just completed building my first U67 tube microphone clone and wanted to try it out. The bass clarinet went first and the layers followed naturally. Lament is the shortest and most unadulterated of the pieces on this album. I still don’t know what the time signature is, but I feel it and I clapped it, so it must exist. Alto saxophone and bass clarinet are improvised and layered.