Worlds in a Life 2
"There are as many worlds in a life as there are lives in the world." – from track titles on The Gowanus Session (Thollem/Parker/Cline)
Creativity is theoretically infinite. Just as improvisors can play the same song every night and have it sound different every time, existing recordings can have their materials combined in different ways, re-mixed, re-ordered, re-everything’d. Some people prefer the comforting solidity of a single version, unchanging, but that is antithetical to the jazz spirit. The infinity of creativity is being explored in two new projects by Thollem (McDonas).
Worlds in a Life, Two is the second of two albums that Thollem created using samples from all of the six Thollem/Cline Trio albums as the primary sound sources (including double bass, piano, organ, electric guitar, drums, MIDI accordion, and voice). The approach developed naturally out of the process of creating The Light Is Real with Nels and Terry Riley on Other Minds Records (December, 2023). In 2012, Thollem and Nels's first trio collaboration was with William Parker (The Gowanus Sessions, Porter Records and ESP-Disk' [ESP 5037]). The following albums include the Radical Empathy and Reality and Other Imaginary Places with Michael Wimberly (Relative Pitch and ESP-Disk' [ESP5035]), and Molecular Affinity with Pauline Oliveros (Roaratorio).
Worlds in a Life, Two was recorded in real time on a Wavestate, with no overdubs, by Thollem on the traditional, unceded homelands of Ohkay Owingeh and the Jicarilla Apache Nation in the time commonly accepted as January, 2024, and mastered by Seán Mac Erlaine in Studio Sáile, Dublin, IE. This music is a celebration of the limitless palette of sounds and the infinite within each of us, known and unknown, revealing discoveries made through intensive explorations. Thollem will be touring with these albums throughout 2024 with New Mexican video artist ACVilla, who will be mixing new visual material created for this performance, along the lines of this: https://vimeo.com/thollemacvilla/wialone
Track Listing:
1. All Sounds In 3:38
2. A Storm and a Feather 5:07
3. Visions Cells 7:48
4. Tongues We Think In 4:53
5. Sounds from Memory 2:58
6. Conversations on the Way 7:08
7. Bird Sing Bird Song 2:25
8. We Were All Just Here 5:49
9. Chagudah 4:24
Total 44:13
Personnel: Thollem, composer, Wavestate, piano, organ; Nels Cline, guitar, effects, Megamouth; Pauline Oliveros, MIDI accordion; William Parker, double bass; Terry Riley, vocals; Michael Wimberly, drums
Press Quotes: "Thollem displays a chameleonic ability to adapt to suit whatever musical context presents itself... there is more than one way to access the infinite." – Daniel Spicer, The Wire
With Worlds In A Life, One Thollem "makes something entirely new using used parts created by various trios and molds them into a genuine piece of aural art made by six performers, using the intuition of one." – S. Victor Aaron, Something Else!
“Thollem’s improvisational and compositional wizardry has many dimensions.” – Brad Cohan, Jazz Times