The Bloom
W. Allaudin Mathieu, piano
George Marsh, drumset
Jennifer Wilsey, drumset and percussion
Bloomin' Music!
Allaudin: People are going to want to know how we came to play the way we do. Jennifer: I always wanted to play a certain way. As a teenager I’d sit at the piano at night and improvise in the dark. It was a feeling of communion with myself, with being-ness through sound, and now I get to experience that same communion with others. Allaudin: When I was seventeen I’d play the piano for my girlfriend, a beautiful dancer, and that created a kind of heaven world for me. I hadn’t the slightest idea what I was playing, but I loved her so much it sounded beautiful. Then I started actually listening to it, and building a musical language that came from that love-feeling. George: For me it’s a bang-wop-ding song I’ve always been singing — maybe a weird way to sing, but it’s how I sing, how I play. When the playing and the listening are the same thing, the music just happens. And knowing that your buddies are also playing and listening, you just do it and music happens. Allaudin: IT does it. Jennifer: Surprise! George: Making sound and being responded to gets more surprising all the time. The music we make can take you anywhere — from a roller coaster to a slow stroll or anything in between.
Allaudin: What’s constant is the way we trust one another. That’s the way Viola Spolin taught theater games…. Jennifer: .…and it works two ways: our improvisational approach depends on our sense of trust and the music helps our sense of trust to grow. George: Trust is a kind of love. Jennifer: Whole-being listening is the presence in which love can arise. Pauline Oliveros has said, “Where there’s listening there’s music”, what’s also true is that where there’s listening there’s love.
George: The games help, and the structures help, but you have to go past the games into pure feeling. Jennifer: I like the continuum between the more structured pieces, like Bloomcicles, Ga-Ga-Ga, and Gong-a-ji to the looser structures of the games like the Duet Circles, all the way to “just play.” Allaudin: I’m glad we spent so many years learning so many different ways of playing together but, yeah, the real magic is when the games disappear…. George: ….when the music opens into the surprise of the unification of us three. Jennifer: It’s an unfolding that happens inside the music through listening together, a flowering of the moment. George: ….and a flower doesn’t have an agenda other than what it is. Allaudin: A blooming flower is a slow-mo version of how it feels in the middle of an unfolding improvisation.
George: When you really look at a flower it pulls you in into its sexuality. Jennifer: Well, a bloom is born, it reproduces, and then it dies. That’s a part of the attraction of improvisation, dealing with beginnings and endings. Allaudin: Sex and death….. George: Oh no! Not again….. Jennifer: You know, this conversation we’re having right now isn’t all that different from the music we play. Allaudin: It’s part of The Great Conversation going on all the time, the human improvisation opening out everywhere at once. George: It’s music, man it’s bloomin’ music.
George Marsh, drumset
Jennifer Wilsey, drumset and percussion
Bloomin' Music!
Allaudin: People are going to want to know how we came to play the way we do. Jennifer: I always wanted to play a certain way. As a teenager I’d sit at the piano at night and improvise in the dark. It was a feeling of communion with myself, with being-ness through sound, and now I get to experience that same communion with others. Allaudin: When I was seventeen I’d play the piano for my girlfriend, a beautiful dancer, and that created a kind of heaven world for me. I hadn’t the slightest idea what I was playing, but I loved her so much it sounded beautiful. Then I started actually listening to it, and building a musical language that came from that love-feeling. George: For me it’s a bang-wop-ding song I’ve always been singing — maybe a weird way to sing, but it’s how I sing, how I play. When the playing and the listening are the same thing, the music just happens. And knowing that your buddies are also playing and listening, you just do it and music happens. Allaudin: IT does it. Jennifer: Surprise! George: Making sound and being responded to gets more surprising all the time. The music we make can take you anywhere — from a roller coaster to a slow stroll or anything in between.
Allaudin: What’s constant is the way we trust one another. That’s the way Viola Spolin taught theater games…. Jennifer: .…and it works two ways: our improvisational approach depends on our sense of trust and the music helps our sense of trust to grow. George: Trust is a kind of love. Jennifer: Whole-being listening is the presence in which love can arise. Pauline Oliveros has said, “Where there’s listening there’s music”, what’s also true is that where there’s listening there’s love.
George: The games help, and the structures help, but you have to go past the games into pure feeling. Jennifer: I like the continuum between the more structured pieces, like Bloomcicles, Ga-Ga-Ga, and Gong-a-ji to the looser structures of the games like the Duet Circles, all the way to “just play.” Allaudin: I’m glad we spent so many years learning so many different ways of playing together but, yeah, the real magic is when the games disappear…. George: ….when the music opens into the surprise of the unification of us three. Jennifer: It’s an unfolding that happens inside the music through listening together, a flowering of the moment. George: ….and a flower doesn’t have an agenda other than what it is. Allaudin: A blooming flower is a slow-mo version of how it feels in the middle of an unfolding improvisation.
George: When you really look at a flower it pulls you in into its sexuality. Jennifer: Well, a bloom is born, it reproduces, and then it dies. That’s a part of the attraction of improvisation, dealing with beginnings and endings. Allaudin: Sex and death….. George: Oh no! Not again….. Jennifer: You know, this conversation we’re having right now isn’t all that different from the music we play. Allaudin: It’s part of The Great Conversation going on all the time, the human improvisation opening out everywhere at once. George: It’s music, man it’s bloomin’ music.
Gestaltish
We've got a new EP to celebrate at our next show on April 16! Join us for an evening of
spontaneous music that emerges from Deep Listening, compassion and good humor. Gestaltish uses game approaches and temporal architectures to encapsulate sonic moments and re-invigorate the concept of free improvisation with intuition and unexpected sonorities.
Jacob Peck, guitar and percussion
Gretchen Jude, voice
Jennifer Wilsey, drumset/percussion and piano
Rachel Condry, clarinets
Visit our website, FB and Soundcloud pages!
http://www.gestaltish.com
https://www.facebook.com/GestaltIsh
https://soundcloud.com/gestalt-ish
spontaneous music that emerges from Deep Listening, compassion and good humor. Gestaltish uses game approaches and temporal architectures to encapsulate sonic moments and re-invigorate the concept of free improvisation with intuition and unexpected sonorities.
Jacob Peck, guitar and percussion
Gretchen Jude, voice
Jennifer Wilsey, drumset/percussion and piano
Rachel Condry, clarinets
Visit our website, FB and Soundcloud pages!
http://www.gestaltish.com
https://www.facebook.com/GestaltIsh
https://soundcloud.com/gestalt-ish
Luna Ensemble
http://www.lunaensemble.com/
The Luna Ensemble consists of eight members dedicated to the creation and performance of contemporary music that involves acoustic, electric and electronic instruments.
Based in Oakland, CA, the group comprises improvisers, sound artists and composers that began collaboration at Mills College between 2011 and 2013. The main focus of the ensemble is the translation of sounds of the environment into music through experimental notation, extended instrumental techniques, improvisational strategy, and electronically manipulated field recordings.
The Luna Ensemble exists at an intersection of musique concrète, spectralism, improvisation and American experimentalism.
Members of the group include: Rachel Condry (clarinet), Nava Dunkelman (percussion), Christopher Luna (piano/keyboards), Aaron Oppenheim (electronics), Crystal Pascucci (cello), Jacob Peck (electric guitar), Jeanie-Aprille Tang (electronics), and Jennifer Wilsey (percussion).
http://www.lunaensemble.com/
The Luna Ensemble consists of eight members dedicated to the creation and performance of contemporary music that involves acoustic, electric and electronic instruments.
Based in Oakland, CA, the group comprises improvisers, sound artists and composers that began collaboration at Mills College between 2011 and 2013. The main focus of the ensemble is the translation of sounds of the environment into music through experimental notation, extended instrumental techniques, improvisational strategy, and electronically manipulated field recordings.
The Luna Ensemble exists at an intersection of musique concrète, spectralism, improvisation and American experimentalism.
Members of the group include: Rachel Condry (clarinet), Nava Dunkelman (percussion), Christopher Luna (piano/keyboards), Aaron Oppenheim (electronics), Crystal Pascucci (cello), Jacob Peck (electric guitar), Jeanie-Aprille Tang (electronics), and Jennifer Wilsey (percussion).
Timeless Pulse Quintet
Jennifer Wilsey, percussion
Thomas Buckner, baritone
Pauline Oliveros, accordion
David Wessel, computer electronics
George Marsh, drumset
Visit us on Facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/TimelessPulse
Reviews:
by Startling Moniker
"There’s no way it’s easy to make music this wonderful, but to listen to the Mutable Music release of “Timeless Pulse Quintet,” it’s equally hard to imagine anyone opening their eyes– let alone breaking a sweat..." (read more)
by Mark Keresman
"There is an "ego-less" approach to collective improvisation, one where the musicians really listen, there’s none of the sparring/dueling now-it’s-MY-turn-in-the-spotlight wank and we’re spared the now-tiresome free-for-all skronk-storm. This quartet, whose members come from jazz, classical and electronic background and are the kind of players who frequently blur the lines between them..." (read more)
Thomas Buckner, baritone
Pauline Oliveros, accordion
David Wessel, computer electronics
George Marsh, drumset
Visit us on Facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/TimelessPulse
Reviews:
by Startling Moniker
"There’s no way it’s easy to make music this wonderful, but to listen to the Mutable Music release of “Timeless Pulse Quintet,” it’s equally hard to imagine anyone opening their eyes– let alone breaking a sweat..." (read more)
by Mark Keresman
"There is an "ego-less" approach to collective improvisation, one where the musicians really listen, there’s none of the sparring/dueling now-it’s-MY-turn-in-the-spotlight wank and we’re spared the now-tiresome free-for-all skronk-storm. This quartet, whose members come from jazz, classical and electronic background and are the kind of players who frequently blur the lines between them..." (read more)
Timeless Pulse Trio
Pauline Oliveros, accordion
George Marsh, drumset
Jennifer Wilsey, percussion
label: Taiga
Mastered for vinyl by Kenny Evans at Mesa Recording, cut direct to metal and pressed on 200 gram virgin vinyl, this double LP is limited to 500 copies. It comes packaged in the custom designed slipcover and jacket with double-wide spine. The slipcover features two exquisite photographs and is dual-finished with a gloss front and uncoated back. The jacket is printed with metallic ink, has a flooded pocket and features an essay by Amy Beal, Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
"Released in honor of the 20th annual Deep Listening Retreats held this year in Camallera, Spain and Petaluma, California, this is the third Timeless Pulse album. Formed in 1991 during a residency at the Deep Listening Institute, the full ensemble, including Thomas Buckner and David Wessel, has released two live recordings on CD: Live At CNMAT and Quintet. This is the first time this entity has been stripped down to a trio, recorded in a studio and released on vinyl.
Divided into four sides with titled subsections, the album includes guests Ione and Joyce Kouffman contributing spoken word and cello on "Real As Any Dream."
"The sound world within which Timeless Pulse Trio prefers to work: sustained sounds like Pauline's accordion drones, gongs, bowed cymbals, ornamented by rattles, bells and the cracks and pops of the drum set and struck resonant objects ... These recordings emanate from a culture of active listening, as promoted and practiced by this trio, as well as by many other ensemble-based improvisers and meditative musical practices around the globe. The heart of free improvisation rests in the act of listening, and in the discovery inherent to that process."--excerpted from Beal's essay
review by boomkat:
'Trio' is the first vinyl LP by Timeless Pulse, the avant-garde triumvirate of Pauline Oliveros playing accordion, joined by percussionists George Marsh and Jennifer Wilsey Marsh. Their third album is released in honor of the 20th annual Deep Listening Retreats held in 2010 in Camallera, Spain and Petaluma, California. Since forming in 1991 the full ensemble, including Thomas Buckner and David Wessel, has released two live recordings on CD: 'Live at CNMAT' and 'Quintet.' Now stripped down to a trio, this is the first time they've recorded in a studio and released on vinyl. The attention to detail of this LP is just beautiful, from the individual track descriptions on the sleeve to the custom slipcase, and of course the wonderful free-improvisations within. Entering to 'Bellshine' Pauline's dronal melodies, George's cymbals and Jennifer's array of bells and gongs creates an invocation for the whole album. As the session telepathically unfolds, the trio pay tribute to legendary jazz drummer Max Roach on 'Maxed Out' parts I & II, clearly among the most percussive pieces, while meditative gong songs 'Matsuoka' in tribute to the eponymous Zen teacher and 'Which Way Did Our Zen Go?' are timelessly spiritual, almost rendering time itself as an instrument in their gnostic geometry. This LP has captured some sort of magic which lovers of lucid dreaming and near-unconscious listening states will instantly recognize. A masterful double album - very highly recommended.
George Marsh, drumset
Jennifer Wilsey, percussion
label: Taiga
Mastered for vinyl by Kenny Evans at Mesa Recording, cut direct to metal and pressed on 200 gram virgin vinyl, this double LP is limited to 500 copies. It comes packaged in the custom designed slipcover and jacket with double-wide spine. The slipcover features two exquisite photographs and is dual-finished with a gloss front and uncoated back. The jacket is printed with metallic ink, has a flooded pocket and features an essay by Amy Beal, Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
"Released in honor of the 20th annual Deep Listening Retreats held this year in Camallera, Spain and Petaluma, California, this is the third Timeless Pulse album. Formed in 1991 during a residency at the Deep Listening Institute, the full ensemble, including Thomas Buckner and David Wessel, has released two live recordings on CD: Live At CNMAT and Quintet. This is the first time this entity has been stripped down to a trio, recorded in a studio and released on vinyl.
Divided into four sides with titled subsections, the album includes guests Ione and Joyce Kouffman contributing spoken word and cello on "Real As Any Dream."
"The sound world within which Timeless Pulse Trio prefers to work: sustained sounds like Pauline's accordion drones, gongs, bowed cymbals, ornamented by rattles, bells and the cracks and pops of the drum set and struck resonant objects ... These recordings emanate from a culture of active listening, as promoted and practiced by this trio, as well as by many other ensemble-based improvisers and meditative musical practices around the globe. The heart of free improvisation rests in the act of listening, and in the discovery inherent to that process."--excerpted from Beal's essay
review by boomkat:
'Trio' is the first vinyl LP by Timeless Pulse, the avant-garde triumvirate of Pauline Oliveros playing accordion, joined by percussionists George Marsh and Jennifer Wilsey Marsh. Their third album is released in honor of the 20th annual Deep Listening Retreats held in 2010 in Camallera, Spain and Petaluma, California. Since forming in 1991 the full ensemble, including Thomas Buckner and David Wessel, has released two live recordings on CD: 'Live at CNMAT' and 'Quintet.' Now stripped down to a trio, this is the first time they've recorded in a studio and released on vinyl. The attention to detail of this LP is just beautiful, from the individual track descriptions on the sleeve to the custom slipcase, and of course the wonderful free-improvisations within. Entering to 'Bellshine' Pauline's dronal melodies, George's cymbals and Jennifer's array of bells and gongs creates an invocation for the whole album. As the session telepathically unfolds, the trio pay tribute to legendary jazz drummer Max Roach on 'Maxed Out' parts I & II, clearly among the most percussive pieces, while meditative gong songs 'Matsuoka' in tribute to the eponymous Zen teacher and 'Which Way Did Our Zen Go?' are timelessly spiritual, almost rendering time itself as an instrument in their gnostic geometry. This LP has captured some sort of magic which lovers of lucid dreaming and near-unconscious listening states will instantly recognize. A masterful double album - very highly recommended.
Wilsey / Kreimer / Graves
David Graves, keyboards
Jay Kreimer, handmade instruments
Jennifer Wilsey, drumset/percussion
2013 RELEASE!!!: The July Amalgam by Public Eyesore Records.
Jay Kreimer, handmade instruments
Jennifer Wilsey, drumset/percussion
2013 RELEASE!!!: The July Amalgam by Public Eyesore Records.
