Parker, William

At Somewhere There

Label: Barnyard Country: Canada

"Somewhere There is a place for informal music. This may suggest the music isn't serious but that's not what I mean at all.For example, William Parker made this music for forty rapt listeners on a hot July night in Toronto. It's a music where the form unfolded in the playing, literally a new music. His signature synaesthetic philosophy invites colour-drenched metaphors: Prismic refraction, gardens blooming, a harvest feast being prepared. This music is playful, as seriously playful as your life.

Likewise, the musicWitness®, Jeff Schlanger, the playful co-conspirator in this sightsound music, swirled a serious dance of paint, making the sounds tangible in colour. As a place for informal music, Somewhere There invited its forty guests to get inside the mysterious space where these men played. The experience was so enveloping for me that I could see the sounds William played, first in a billowing cloud and then shooting out like light-tendrils that circled my head. As this magic unfolded, though I was sitting in the back with only a wall behind me, I swear that from over my shoulder I could hear children laughing. Seriously."-Scott Thomson, July 2009