Infinite-Sum Game

From the Liner Notes by Thollem: My approach to the piano is unique, based on my lifelong relationship with the instrument. It is also universal, born out of the context of everything and everyone who came before and during. I have been influenced by my classical piano training, my pianist parents, growing up in the culturally diverse SF Bay Area, West Coast punk rock, Kuumbwa Jazz Club, The Cabrillo Music Festival, and my life of traveling and living without a homebase. This album expresses the culmination of my life’s experiences in dialogue with the universe and my fellow human beings, including all the artists I've worked with over the years. Those collaborations have continuously helped stretch me into new shapes. An ‘infinite-sum game’ is the opposite of a ‘zero-sum game’ in that all of the participants benefit from each other, a symbiosis of sorts, biologically, culturally, financially, politically. It's the heightened state of mind of recognizing that our lives are better when others are also doing well and we put in the effort to facilitate this outcome.

Since I was a child, the confluence between musics has been at the forefront of my curiosity. As a result, my music is genre-bending, code-switching, omni-idiomatic, and intersectional. Growing up, all of the composers I was studying were telling me to tell my own story. I was hyper-aware that 'Classical Music' was actually a constant revolution, and that this was the same for jazz and rock and roll too. The greatest way to honor the revolutionaries of the past is to respond to the dynamics of one's own time. I never set out to play a certain style of music, or to emulate anyone, but through my own particular explorational approach, sounds inevitably arise that conjure someone else's music, which is wide open for interpretation. Some of these comprovisations have been included on previous solo albums of mine. I see this recording as the ultimate, and final, document of these pieces. Thank you for listening!

NOTE: for downloads, please go to Infinite-Sum Game | Thollem (bandcamp.com)

Credits: Performed live by Thollem McDonas at Sala Perriera, Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, Palermo, Sicilia, 13 May 2023. Recorded and mixed by Simone Sfamelli. Mastered by Sean Mac Erlaine at Studio Saile, Dublin. Design and artwork by ACVilla.

 Track Listing:

1. When Only Knows

2. From Why We Came

3. All the Creatures

4. Gathering Gatherers

5. Fiercely Sweetly

6. Nomad Sunset

7.Every Key Every Door

8. The Sunrise Gang

9. Feel a Drop of Rain for a While

10. Into the When

11. Unmasking Now

12. Forever Flow

13. Symbi Oasis

Quotes:
“Thollem is a modern griot who has absorbed sounds from every place he has visited.” – William Parker, from Conversations II (Rogue Art)

"Thollem is a bruising virtuoso who has deconstructed free music, classical, blues, electronic music, prog, noise, and everything in between." - Brad Cohan, Bandcamp

"Thollem might be a musician, or he might be some kind of wizard scientist." - The Denver Westword

Musicians: Thollem