Matthew Wright’s Cracked Glaze is released on False Walls in May 2026. Here are Nate Wooley’s sleeve notes from the CD booklet.

The Flaneur’s Mission
Matt Wright’s Cracked Glaze and the Sustenance of Immersion
by Nate Wooley

The walks started as a remedy for my pandemic cabin fever. Based on Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain, a poetic description of the twentieth-century Scottish writer’s hikes through the Cairngorm mountains, I’ve traced the same route in Brooklyn for almost five years: up a sycamore-lined row of crumbling, three-family homes to a small side-street jog, before taking a left and shooting straight up two-miles of city blocks to Prospect Park. I’d sit on a bench, then head back the exact same way, passing the same apartment buildings, crossing the same larger and smaller streets, smelling the same smell of Mexican bakeries. I maintain this practice, and every day I stroll through a world that is concrete and memorized. But my experience of these four miles has become a dense thicket of experience that changes shape depending on the season, the people or animals that I encounter, or my mood. The city blocks don’t objectively change, but my experience of living in them subjectively wrestles them into a new shape and hue every time I walk down my front steps.

There’s something about Matt Wright’s Cracked Glaze that rhymes neatly with this phenomenological shift from objective to subjective and back, a process the anthropologist Mick Taussig calls enchantment. Although Wright’s metaphor is pottery—and how the cracks in an otherwise perfect glaze become the all-important markers of difference and beauty within a very real piece of craftsmanship—and not a wandering walk, I believe our thinking is parallel. We’re both understanding his composition as a balance between the repeatable and the spontaneous—the rigid form and its malleable content.

Set form and spontaneous content have danced together for millennia: narrative shaped the sung melodies of ancient music; florid improvisations grew out of the semiology of 17^th century figured bass notation; and jazz structured itself on a grid of harmonies and time with ever-changing melodies. The last ten years, however, have seen contemporary composers embracing the unknown of improvisation as content within complex compositional forms. Inspired by the AACM, the British scene of the 1960s, and/or the New York School, the promise of the new found in improvisation is a strong motivator for many young composers to give up some of their authorship to the spontaneity of their performers. This has often resulted in a productive blurring of the line between the feral and the mannered. But centering improvisation and improvisors within a composition’s form, presents the insensitive composer with a series of subtle but artistically devastating pitfalls. Cracked Glaze is a powerful example of a composer understanding these pitfalls and creatively avoiding them while making music worth returning to again and again.

Typically a composition works with form as a container which then has musical information poured into it, as in the cyclical AABA song or the developmental sonata-allegro movement. In Cracked Glaze, the form is structurally conceived as a melodic center-post around which Wright’s composing and the improvisation of the ensemble is built. Wright calls this organizing feature the “spine” of the piece, and it’s an apt description: his slowly descending line continually falls and repeats, truncating and expanding as it makes its way down the middle of the music. Rather than providing the dimensions of a musical box, Wright’s “spine” outlines an audible path around which the improvising musicians can veer from and return to while signaling to the listener that, no matter what happens sonically, forward progress is being made.

To show why the “spine” is special, allow me to return to the subject of walking. Following the same path—be it along the streets of Brooklyn or over the Cairngorms of Scotland—with the intention of finding a new meaning and depth in its surroundings requires not only something of the attention of the walker, but also of the construction of their path. If the route is too difficult, its complexity destroys the flaneur’s mission as they focus their attention on finding their way rather than being able to dig deeply into the changes in the foliage on a tree or a new addition to a family of feral cats. Using repetition to outline a form works in much the same way. Basing a composition around a musical idea that isn’t both easy to reproduce, and ultimately hummable, forces the musicians and listeners to constantly keep their auditory attention fixed on tracking its complexity. Wright’s “spine” form is wonderfully catchy without overshadowing the rest of the music. The timing and method of his meager manipulations are done with such care that the listener gets just the slightest sensation of change as they allow their ears to turn to the piece’s other elements. This is one of the beauties of Cracked Glaze and is so subtle that it may be overlooked without spending time listening to the piece again—Nan Shepherd would be proud—and again.

But what of content? Cracked Glaze, as a musical composition, is defined by Wright’s “spine” and his other notated themes, such as the brass glisses, micro-figures in the keyboards and mallets, and the marking-off of the concert bass drum. These ensemble moments make up a skeleton on which improvisations will be laid on as flesh. To use Wright’s metaphor, the score could be seen as perfectly fired pottery: repeatable and flawless. But what’s the use in perfection? As beautifully constructed as Wright’s score is, would it be interesting to hear only those moments, flawlessly executed within his time code? Perhaps. But it’s obvious that Cracked Glaze seeks something different. It is a vase begging for the personality given by a few well-placed cracks. Situating improvisation amid set compositional elements can, in the best circumstances, provide a musical complexity only rarely obtained with a pencil and paper. But relying on an improviser to fill in the details of a form in real time comes with the risk that the composition loses itself in the hysterical virtuosity of an improvisor “doing their thing.”

There are such things as uninteresting cracks, just as there are such things as uninteresting walks. It doesn’t mean either experience is objectively bad—the crack could be attractive, the walk sunny and warm—but the pleasure we receive from them doesn’t necessarily validate itself as an experience worth remembering. The composer wants, and the listener needs, something to mark that moment as special. Engineering a sense of this ambiguous “something special” is at the center of choosing the improvisors for a piece such as Cracked Glaze. If you involve players that rely on slick virtuosity or a musical vocabulary cynically designed to “move” the listener, your piece will be pretty, but inane. If you go hard the other way, giving free reign to an improvisor that is radical but less than sensitive, your musical content may become a series of sounds that are fascinating in themselves but unrelated to each other and the piece you have worked so hard to erect.

The chosen players have to be flexible, sensitive, and egoless. And, again, Wright has made the correct move in asking Sofia Jernberg, Alex Hawkins, Neil Charles, Mandhira de Saram, Joey Marijs, and Stephen Davis to take on the not-for-the-faint-of-heart job of tapping the “cracks” into his piece. If you’re familiar with their world of spontaneity and strangeness, you will already know these names, and their performances on this disc are likely to give you the self-satisfied warmth of hopes fulfilled. If you are new to their music, however, what you are about to discover is something I’d call magic if I didn’t know how much preparation and work is required to be an improvisor of their caliber.

Another consideration in choosing performers is the balance of their improvisational languages. Hearing stylistically similar musicians improvise one after the other is about as interesting as sitting through a half dozen actors reading the same Lord Byron poem, each louder than the last. The wonderful tension of Cracked Glaze exists within, among other things, the push and pull of each player’s syntactical funkiness. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this is Hawkins’ Herbie Hancock-esque rollick down the middle of the piece’s central spine. His modern jazz acrobatics and extended harmonies are stunning (unsurprising coming from Hawkins), but his solo would only be worth a passing mention if it didn’t play so perfectly against the tart sound worlds created by Spheric Totemic and the always-almost-too-painfully-human quality of Jernberg’s voice. It’s the careful curation of artists and their care in bringing what is unique to them to the piece that ultimately makes Cracked Glaze work.

With form and content taken care of, there is one final trap to be negotiated: documentation. Composition and improvisation are saddled with different expectations, histories, and philosophies when it comes to recording. Composition’s leaning toward reproducibility favors precision, with seemingly small musical choices like Pierre Boulez’s slightly slow rendering of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony taking on outsized importance. On the other hand, improvisation is geared toward capturing the ephemerality of once-in-a-lifetime inspiration—lightning in a bottle. Wright has recognized the opportunity to create something more than a mimesis of live performance. He subtly layers post-recording and time-expansion effects throughout, not as a thick coat of electronics over what is a truly delicate and wild and wonderful live performance, but as a subtle luster within the sound itself.

All the post-production in the world, however, will not enliven a poor, or apathetic, performance. And Ensemble Klang deserves more than this belated credit as one of those rare ensembles that can negotiate complex notated music with accuracy and elegance while maintaining a sense of danger: like threading a needle while tossing a match onto a bonfire. The metaphors are odd, but I won’t apologize for their color or their accuracy, because what Klang is doing is rare and wonderful both here and throughout their two decades. They are geniuses at turning the crazy idea into something that sounds completely natural and organic.

In the end, this whole recording is rare and wonderful. There are the reasons listed above—Wright’s deft handling of the piece’s form and balance, the joy of hearing great improvisors at the top of their game, a murderers’ row new music ensemble, and a near flawless recorded document—but ultimately, the question that should be asked of this and all recordings is whether it leaves us wanting to return to it, demanding to know more. And that’s where these notes have to leave you to do your own thinking. Some signposts and talking points have been outlined above, and with humility. I hope they will be helpful. But once the music starts, the preceding text immediately becomes flat and dull, because you’re entering into Wright’s world of sound. Once you do, you have to make a choice: you can inhabit this world once and move on to the next new thing, or you can take the time to revisit it again in order to find more in its depths. This is up to you, but repeated trips down this path will be rewarded.

It’s getting too cold here for my daily walks, but when I do manage to get out, I’m happy to see the way the frost has redecorated the elms and sycamores; I like that the birds are fatter, and I can only recognize some of my neighbors from their eyes peeking out of their balaclavas. Soon, I’ll be grounded for weeks at a time, and I’ll have to turn my attention away from my little walking project and place my attention elsewhere. Luckily, I have Cracked Glaze, to revisit again and again.

Nate Wooley is a trumpet player, improvisor, composer, and writer dedicated to the American tradition of vibrantly shaggy experimentalism. https://natewooley.wordpress.com

WHAT WAS by Kenny Wheeler Sextet is the first release of a 1995 studio session, produced by Evan Parker. Paris-Move’s review of the album says it is “… as vital and immediate as anything already in the extended canon of Canadian-born, UK-based jazz master Kenny Wheeler.” Here are Nick Smart’s sleeve notes from the CD booklet.

What was then … never again
Nick Smart

Any previously unreleased studio session from a great artist is an exciting prospect, especially an artist sadly no longer with us but one whose legacy is still being cared for and curated by many of the musicians with whom they were closest. Such is the case with this outstanding recording from Kenny Wheeler’s sextet at Gateway Studio in late 1995, capturing a special period in his life with a special group of colleagues.

On What Was we hear Kenny at 65 years old and still at the height of his musical powers, but with the mature finesse and refinement consistent with all his playing during the nineties and particularly on his most successful recording of all time, made just a few months after this session in February 1996, Angel Song (ECM). This period is perhaps a kind of ‘second chapter’ in the evolution of his playing; after the fiery Wheeler of the 1970s we hear him now still full of passion and every bit as assured, but with the more reflective, glass-like quality that refined itself into his sound and self-expression around this time. In addition to that, this new release also brings together many of the people deeply connected with Kenny and his musical world throughout his entire career. It confirms what Brian Shaw and I were left in no doubt about when researching and writing Kenny’s biography: that people were at the centre of his musical development and identity. It was a theme repeated over and over. The musicians here draw together many important connections in his life: a long association with Ray Warleigh, who was a big voice in his large ensemble music; the presence of John Parricelli demonstrating Kenny’s awareness of and connection to some of the younger musicians coming through – post Loose Tubers such as John, Julian Argüelles, and latterly Martin France, Mark Lockheart, Steve Watts and others; and perhaps most significantly, we feel the importance of John Taylor’s sextet with the presence of four members in Kenny, Stan Sulzmann, and Chris Laurence, who along with Tony Levin bring their own unique, highly interactive feel to the rhythm-section. By this point the four of them (along with Ray Warleigh) embody decades of musical growth and development together, forging a unique sound and a collective voice of singular importance in European and World Jazz. Add into that Evan Parker’s role as chief instigator of this recording session and producer of the album, and practically every facet of Kenny’s musical family is represented.

This album stands out as a chance to hear Kenny play on compositions written by his colleagues too, with one swinging contribution from Mick Pyne as the only musician not actually in the group; his tune “Masbro”, probably written with Tubby Hayes’s group in mind and no doubt brought along to the session by Ray. Plus, two each from Ray Warleigh and Stan Sulzmann. Ray’s hard-boppish “Blue Nile” is almost befitting of the Jazz Messengers with its quartal harmony and afro-latin vamps, and the beautiful “Footloose” a much more Kenny-inspired melody underpinned with elegant, shifting chord changes. It is a reminder too just what a hugely important composer Stan Sulzmann is, as well as being one of the great saxophonists of contemporary European Jazz and one of the major, uniquely empathetic side-musicians associated with Kenny’s career. His “You’ve Read the Book” and “Newness” demonstrate his mastery of modern jazz harmony and melodic counter-point, one that carries Kenny’s traditions forward in new and unique ways while still honouring that connection. Kenny’s first contribution “What Was” is a fascinating thematic composition; he used a similar motif later as part of the final section of the “2005 Suite” composed for his 75th birthday – it’s not identical but the ascending and descending snakes and ladders character is very reminiscent. It is another bit of word play (“What Is This Thing Called Love?” / “What Was”), as so many of his titles are, and another example of his apparent fascination with that particular Cole Porter composition. It was a piece Kenny took as inspiration for the chord sequence of his own composition “Foxy Trot”, and one we found various arrangements and reharmonisations of in his archive. It is also a piece he even included, unusually for him, as part of one of his long-form suites, the “Sweet Sister Suite” also in the 1990s. So, it is fitting here that he should close out his own “What Was” by segueing into “Subconscious-Lee”, a contrafact by Lee Konitz on the chord sequence of “What Is This Thing Called Love?”. Lee must have been on Kenny’s mind, with the upcoming recording of Angel Song just months away. The link with Angel Song is present again on the final tune of Kenny’s, “Kind Folk”. In this iteration he records it as a ballad with three-part frontline presenting the haunting melody, but this composition had already been heard as an up-tempo straight 8’s piece in the second movement of his famous “Sweet Time Suite” (Music For Large & Small Ensembles, ECM, 1990), and in Kenny’s archive we found two earlier sketches of the same composition experimenting with different settings – one as a ballad called “Folking Ballad”, and a second as a waltz called “Folking Waltz”! Eventually, perhaps the most famous setting for it was in its gently rolling 9/8 version recorded for Angel Song just a few months after this album.

What Was is a welcome release that affords us a new chance to hear more of the combination already glimpsed on the earlier issued Dream Sequence (psi), which shared one studio date with this complete session. It’s another treasure in the important legacy of a much missed, and irreplaceable musician.

Song for Someone: The Musical Life of Kenny Wheeler, by Nick Smart and Brian Shaw, was published by Equinox in 2025.

Album cover design: David Caines
Photograph: Caroline Forbes

Evan Parker was interviewed by John Robinson in the May 2025 edition of Uncut magazine regarding The Heraclitean Two-Step, etc, on False Walls: “the sax legend on improv, the Oscars and his new CD boxset”. The published interview was edited down from the following.

There’s a lot of material here, interviews, writing, art, emails – the kinds of things you might find in a retrospective set rather than a new release. Did you feel the time was right for an extensive statement?

Thanks for your interest John. My first proposal to CJ Mitchell at False Walls was for a single CD for which I had a clear idea and even a title. I had a 22 minute solo recording from a concert in the Unitarian Chapel in Warwick in 1994. It was played as part of a group concert. Not long enough to release as a piece in its own right, it had an atmosphere or feeling that made me listen to it every so often. Finally I had the idea to go back to the same space in Warwick in 2023 and record again. The title was “The Heraclitean Two-Step” for obvious reasons – the saying of Heraclitus about not being able to step in the same river twice – although the more I looked into the origins of the famous dictum the less obvious it became. CJ was happy with the idea of a single CD but encouraged me to be more ambitious with my 80th birthday coming up. I had seen and admired the boxed set of Andrew Poppy’s music False Walls had produced and in the spirit nothing ventured, I asked whether such a production might be possible. He agreed. We started to compile the ideas and materials.

My first plan was to look at the archive of concert recordings I had done at various stages and places. Particularly concerts from Edinburgh, Aachen, Berklee and New York for which I had high quality analogue recordings. Listening to old work can be very demanding; there is a frustration in hearing elements emerging which took years to bring under control but which are not fully under control … I dropped the whole archive idea and went to the recent recordings which I had made immediately before and during the covid hiatus. The three CDs which constitute the “etc.” of the title were all made at the Arco Barco Studio in Ramsgate and document the evolution of my relationship with the acoustics of the space and with Fil Gomes, the studio owner and recording engineer. Fil has become a good friend and understands what I am looking for.

It’s a wonderfully immersive album. Can you tell me about what considerations guided you through the sequencing?

The four CDs run in chronological order and the recording techniques used were evolving throughout this period. There is material from before and after the covid hiatus – which represents another “two step”. To the extent there was editing, it was by the omission of entire sessions. “Some days are better”, as Kenny Wheeler used to say. There are no cuts and joins – material was either used or not used. Fil and I have such a good understanding of how to do this that I am eager to get back there to do more as soon as I have some new material.

We know you as an improviser, and a prolific composer. How far have you planned out what form a longer piece will take – or is that dictated in the moment?

My approach to concert and studio is gradually merging. The key thing is to get the right reed for the particular room then play until there is nothing more. There is quite a bit of discussion either explicit or by inference in the boxset’s book about the limits of the term “improvisation”. If the etymology is indeed from “unforeseen” then I am only partly improvising, since things often move from the known to the unknown. I would like to return to describing the playing as “open”. Yes, “chance” comes into this but it has very little to do with John Cage’s use of chance in composition.

It was a pleasure to hear your work used prominently in The Brutalist. What was the process – and what did you think of the film and the music’s place in it?

I met Daniel Blumberg at Cafe Oto some years ago. He wanted me to play soprano saxophone for his work on “The Brutalist”. He asked me which space I would like to play in. Of course I chose Arco Barco in Ramsgate. He came down with all his own high spec recording gear, some beautiful Schoeps microphones, and we spent a good evening together. It was great that he sang for all his friends at Cafe Oto over the “your time’s up music” at the Oscars.

What is/How does one do the Heraclitean Two-Step?

My first idea for the boxset cover was a pastiche of the Warhol b&w dance step screen prints but it lost out to the beautiful photograph by Caroline Forbes of sunlight on a stone from the Verdon.

Many thanks to Uncut magazine: https://www.uncut.co.uk

>Born Trembling<
by Tremble With Joy

CD/digital release: October 1, 2024

Tremble With Joy is a new collaboration between Cinder (Cindytalk), Michael Anderson (Drekka), Mark Trecka, and Michael Carlson (remst8). The CD packaging for their first release includes visual artwork by David Caines and letterpress printing by Hellbox Letter Foundry (Faversham, UK) — the first in an occasional letterpress series from False Walls, including a letterpress CD sleeve, two letterpress 4-panel inserts and the CD.

Here are some photos from Hellbox Letter Foundry (Kent, UK).

False Walls is pleased to release MARCONI’S DRIFT by Transatlantic Trance Map on September 13, 2024. https://www.falsewalls.co.uk/release/marconis-drift/

Evan Parker and Matthew Wright’s Trance Map project has included improvised live events across Europe and the US, involving other invited guest performers, with various Trance Map+ recordings released on psi, Intakt and FMR Records. Since 2020, Trance Map+ have undertaken ambitious streamed and networked performances, connecting with musicians around the world from The Hot Tin venue in Faversham, Kent, UK. In 2022, this resulted in Transatlantic Trance Map, a simultaneous performance between seven musicians in Kent and six musicians in Roulette, New York City, which is profiled on MARCONI’S DRIFT.

An archival focus on Trance Map, including a number of ‘paths’ through audio and video recordings, texts, interviews and original writing, can be found here:
https://echo.orpheusinstituut.be/article/paths-through-pasts

More Trance Map information:
https://www.matt-wright.co.uk/trance-map
https://evanparkerintakt.bandcamp.com/album/etching-the-ether
https://evanparkerintakt.bandcamp.com/album/crepuscule-in-nickelsdorf

A Trance Map duo release is forthcoming from Relative Pitch (USA):
https://relativepitchrecords.bandcamp.com

We have launched a blog, ARK, where writers/musicians are invited to write about an album of their choosing. The first posts are now available:

Robin Rimbaud / Scanner on Mohnomishe by Zoviet France (1983).
Leah Kardos on The SubSet by Kristeen Young (2019).
Ian Masters on Os Afro Sambas by Baden E Vinicius (1966).

https://www.falsewalls.co.uk/ark/

Radio Buena Vida, Glasgow, have a one-hour edition of ‘If There Is Something … w/ Cindytalk’ dedicated to the False Walls label, which you can stream here:
https://soundcloud.com/radiobuenavida/if-there-is-somethingw-cindytalk-radio-buena-vida-250224

Including:
ANDREW POPPY – AVALANCHE THOUGHTS No.6.
CINDYTALK – SEE SEER SEEK
KEVIN DANIEL CAHILL – CAOINEADH
HENRY DAGG & EVAN PARKER – CHOCKS AWAY, ATLANTIC CITY REVISITED, SURFING THE WAVEFORMS
HELENA CELLE – MUSIC FOR COUNTERFLOWS
CINDYTALK – WHERE EVERYTHING SPARKLES AND SHINES
HENRY DAGG & EVAN PARKER – REVOLVE TO RESOLVE
ASTRÏD – TALKING PEOPLE
GENE COLEMAN – ACROSS TIME (TRANSONIC SYMPHONY 1) MOVEMENT III LIM-MEM ; MOVEMENT II COG-ASA
KEVIN DANIEL CAHILL – IMPOSSIBLE WORLDS
ASTRÏD – REMEMBERING THROUGH NARRATIVE

Gene Coleman has been developing a series of works around concepts of Neuro Music and Transcultural Music, some of which are collected for the first time on Exploratorium, which is also the first album exclusively dedicated to Gene’s compositions. The CD booklet includes the following Introduction by Gene, as well as notes on each of the compositions.

Ideas about exploratory behavior, Neuro Music and Transcultural Music have been the basis for many of my works over the last 20 years. Exploratorium is an album of some of those works and a space of exploration. Indeed, all the works on this album are examples of Neuro Music, which is the fundamental connection point across these compositions.

I define Neuro Music as an area of research and creation based on the study and application of models and concepts from Auditory Neuroscience, as a form of musical composition. For me the big question is: how can we apply ideas and data from Auditory Neuroscience to create new works of art?

My definition of Neuro Music is also shaped by the growing field of Neuroaesthetics, which is a branch of Cognitive Neuroscience that studies aesthetic behaviors, such as the definitions of and responses to beauty. In my lecture ‘Music Mirrors Mind’ I examine the concepts of Neuroaesthetics and Neuro Music, along with related work in these areas by Stan Brakhage, Anthony Braxton, Helmut Lachenmann and Alvin Lucier.

‘Atonal Music as a Model for Investigating Exploratory Behavior’, a paper by a group of neuroscientists, was published in 2022. The paper’s research into ideas of listeners’ exploratory behavior as a neurological activity opens up new ways to think about creativity, both for the composer’s work and how music is heard and processed by listeners. Is it possible to understand an impulse to create things that don’t fit known compositional categories or strategies? There is no clear answer to that yet, but I have a desire to explore new lands in music, I don’t want to travel where most composers go. The possibilities for Neuroscience to deepen our understanding of sound and music, as well as the behaviors of listeners, are extraordinary. Applying these ideas from Neuroscience has profoundly transformed the way I think about and create music.

My interest in Neuroscience and music began around 10 years ago and found an early form in my work for solo cello The Geometry of Thinking (2016). That work contained experiments with what I call Geometric Bowing, a technique of moving the bow on the strings in geometric patterns (rather than the normal back and forth) to represent auditory information processing in the brain. Another technique is called Synapse Bowing, which involves moving the bow vertically on the strings, following patterns of electrical flow between Neurons, as presented by the Neuroscientist Eugene M. Izhikevich in his book Dynamical Systems in Neuroscience. Geometric and Synapse Bowing are on full display in the first work on this album, RITORNO (2019), which is my 2nd string quartet.

The Neuro compositional methods I have developed are modeled on the auditory pathway of the brain (APB). It is my belief that constructing musical compositions based on the APB will allow new forms of musical thought and expression to emerge. Technically speaking, the auditory pathway is the entire chain of events that occur in our auditory experience, from sound waves striking the Pina (outer ear) to the mechanical conversion of air waves to water waves, then to impulses in the auditory nerve, then onward to various stages of cognition, memory, emotion and thinking. This is a vast territory, and in some works I have found it interesting to focus on a particular portion of the APB as the model for the composition. Such is the case with Kokhlos I and Kokhlos IV, which use the inner ear (the Cochlea) as the model for the entire piece. These works (along with Vidrone) use texts by Lance Olsen, who wrote a novel called Dreamlives of Debris that rewrites the mythology of the labyrinth in Crete. ‘Kokhlos’ is the Greek word for ‘spiral shell’, from which the term Cochlea originates. I compare the labyrinth to the Cochlea, the winding, spiral organ that converts sound waves to electrochemical signals.

I am in awe of the ways in which music and brain functions are so similar. I have studied the way the brain processes sound and worked to develop and define related compositional models and refine existing ones. The creative process of designing these models and using them to create music is an amazing odyssey. My models of the auditory pathway merge with my intuition (the subconscious); for many years I have explored the conscious and subconscious in music, though I didn’t define it like that until recently.

Another concept behind some of my works is what I call Transcultural Music, which I define as an area of research and composition based on the integration of music from different cultures and traditions. In my works the emphasis is often on timbre (sound color) and noise to control or dissolve boundaries between different forms of music. In 2003, the Transonic festival was initiated at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (the House of World Cultures) in Berlin. I was very fortunate to be asked by the HKW Director Hans-Georg Knopp to act as the artistic director and composer in residence for this festival. It was an unprecedented opportunity to explore how musical styles and traditions might meet and combine in new ways. This experience, along with my 9-month residence in Japan in 2001, created the conditions for my Transcultural compositions, which have involved collaborations with musicians from Japan, Taiwan, Lebanon, Brazil, China, Europe and North America. The compositions Vidrone (2017) and Across Time (Transonic Symphony #1) (2023) are examples on this album.

Across Time also introduces a new series of works called The Transonic Symphonies. Using highly unique formations of instruments and media, along with my models of Neuro and Transcultural Musics, these works explore new possibilities for what a symphony can be in the 21st century. My main vehicle for the performance of these symphonies is the Transonic Orchestra, a group I started in 2019, which features musicians from many different places and traditions.

This new symphonic approach redefines some concepts of diversity, as it’s not about placing people into existing western hierarchies, like orchestras in the USA and Europe. This form of symphonic music goes deep into different cultures, exploring many traditions, sound and media, using a wide range of instruments from different cultures combined with electronic sounds to create a symphonic, Neuro Music experience.

One aspect of this new kind of symphony involves separately recording individual musicians and using modern popular music and video techniques to mix them together. While in classical, contemporary and jazz music the norm is to record everyone together and capture the sound made by the musicians in real time, to go into new realms it is necessary to move beyond this way of working, especially regarding large ensemble music, where the logistics and economics make many new ideas impossible to realize. I fully intend to present these works live in concert, but these recording and mixing approaches are central to the ideas around Transcultural Music. The ways in which virtual representations and live performers are combined in live concerts is another possibility, as well as electronic media versions for broadcast, etc.

The current politics and economics of the orchestra stifles creativity. Composers fight for small commissions and have very little support to compete with the museum culture of classical music. The composers selected are very limited by what they can compose, which is detrimental for creativity.

In 2023 I launched the Institute for Music and Neuroaesthetics, with headquarters in Bellano, Italy. The work of the Institute will explore the research and creation of Neuro Music and Transcultural Music projects and be a valuable platform for advocacy and support. My goal is to build new pathways to a different, more creative future.