DREWDANNICK

Dan Blacksberg, Nick Millevoi, Roscoe Mitchell

Got back from Oakland a few days ago.  Met up with Dan Blacksberg, Nick Millevoi (who i met when i lived in philadelphia) in order to work with Roscoe Mitchell on the piece we recently commissioned from him.  If the work we did last week is any indication, this is going to be a great piece.  Roscoe had us catalogue every single sound we were able to make on our instruments.  For me that meant Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bari Sax; Bb and contrabass clarinet; C flute; and a reeded trumpet.  After everything was recorded and a method for notation was devised.  Roscoe had us move between different combinations of sounds he thought would sound good together and listened to see how we operated within a given assignment.  It was an incredible time and I can't wait to see what Roscoe comes up with.  Hopefully we'll get a nice gig to premier this piece.  If you know of anything let me know!!!

In addition to the work with Roscoe, I organized a couple of recording sessions with the philly guys (nick and dan) and some good bay area friends; chris golinski-drums, alex christie-laptop, and ryan smith-piano.  The recordings sound great and some really good music was made.  It's really amazing to get a group of musicians together who have never played together and immediately feel a sense of trust and deep listening I usually only find in groups that have played together extensively.  These sessions have completely re-energized me for the year and I can't wait to put out a record of the recordings made during this trip.  I'm sure I'll post when that comes to fruition.

Fragments

Just got the score for 'Fragments/Frames' composed by Robert Seaback and it looks incredible!  The piece was commissioned by SEAMUS and will be premiered at the 2012 conference at Lawrence Conservatory on 2/9/2012 at 8:00pm. Rob came out to San Diego to work on the piece at the beginning of December and things are starting to sound really good.  It's always fun to play a good friends music but it's even more enjoyable when the piece is as well done as this one.  Can't wait for the gig.

This is a picture of Rob and Me playing a different piece about a year ago at Mills College

BRAINS - UNLOADED out now!!

BRAINS 3rd album is out now on iTunes, amazon and as always at edgetonerecords.com

The blurb goes as follows:

"Unloaded" unravels from the bipolar fusion of Chris Golinski and Drew Ceccato. Their most recent ideo-motor outpouring serves up a journey of raw sonic viscera for the listener in three cathartic courses. Through timbre, texture and time - Brains' improvisations wail forth in sheer acoustic spears that open ears to tame your unsuspecting reptilian brain.

Brains 3rd Album 'UNLOADED' coming soon!!

Chris and I are really pumped about this new album.  Even though it's being released 4 months after our 2nd album 'Gristle and Skins'; a year and a half passed between the two recording sessions.

In that time our playing has changed so much both personally and as an ensemble.  In our other albums each track is a kind of self-contained composition where we consciously tried to show our diversity.  However, in this new album we worked on it more as a traditional composition, meaning that we had written music (gasp!) on stands and worked out how the music would flow ahead of time.  I personally feel that this allowed the music to reach a new level due to the fact that we were free to focus on much smaller aspects of the music because the larger structures were worked out prior to the performance.

As usual, the record will be available through edgetone records and will be out the third week of October.

Brains 'Gristle and Skins' review

Brains' second album Gristle and Skins' just got a great review in germany at http://www.tokafi.com/news/brains-gristle-and-skins/

Thanks to the guys over at tokafi for taking a listen and taking the time to write some nice words about the album.

Duo album with James Fei on Contrabass Clarinet album out soon

James Fei and I have been hard at work on recording a piece of his for two contrabass clarinets.  The piece is comprised of two parts, the first slow, continuous held notes in the upper which we allow harmonics to come in and out of the texture creating the illusion of there being more than two players at times.  The second part is at the very bottom of the contra range is aggressive attack after aggressive attack.  The piece builds until the attacks overwhelm everything and take over completely.

The album will be out soon and for the time being will only be available on reel-to-reel tape.....I'm trying to talk james into a digital version but i don't think he's going to concede that one.

Brains second album 'Gristle and Skins' out now on Edgetone Records

Brains second album 'Gristle and Skins' is out now on Edgetone Records!

It's available from the following link edgetone records

This album is much different that our first record which was much more episodic.  Gristle and Skins has a much more developmental approach to each piece where the music flows and changes in a number of different ways.  The pieces range from intense overblown sax and slamming drums to eerie whistles and bowed cymbals.

I hope you check it out.