The Squid's Ear Magazine

Ali / Foster / Lopez / Wallace

The Inflatable Leviathan [CASSETTE w/ DOWNLOAD]

Ali / Foster / Lopez / Wallace: The Inflatable Leviathan [CASSETTE w/ DOWNLOAD] (Tripticks Tapes)

The first studio recording for the performing quartet of New York improvisers, Cecilia Lopez (synthesizer), Michael Foster (tenor & soprano saxophones), Sean Ali (double bass) and Eli Wallace (upright piano), taking listeners on an inflating journey from "Stratosphere" to "Exosphere" through unorthodox approaches, from sparse intensity to dense textural interaction.
 

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Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Sean Ali-double bass

Cecilia Lopez-synthesizer

Michael Foster-tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone

Eli Wallace-upright piano


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




Label: Tripticks Tapes
Catalog ID: TTT019
Squidco Product Code: 32027

Format: CASSETTE
Condition: New
Released: 2022
Country: USA
Packaging: Cassette
Recorded on May 16th, 2021, by Nathanial Morgan.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"The Inflatable Leviathan documents the first studio recording of Cecilia Lopez, Michael Foster, Sean Ali, and Eli Wallace. The group began playing concerts in 2019, exploring the potential musical direction given the combination of these four musicians. They began cultivating their ensemble sound by creating dense textures or sparse ruminating passages that were relieved by moments of melodic impositions, piercing screeches, low growls, intrusive pops, and undulating sweeps.

After a Covid-imposed hiatus, they re-convened in May of 2021 to record The Inflatable Leviathan, coming together to create something equally unique in its electro-acoustic instrumentation as its sonic content. The music unfolds organically. Focusing on unorthodox playing approaches, they collectively effectuate a tapestry where they can insert themselves or stay silent as they see fit, determining where to contribute within the maze of interlocking parts. Temporal perception is tampered with as some sections of the music portray a sense of time suspension, others seem to lurch ahead only to stop abruptly, and some passages even fall into a march-like beat. The music evokes a sense of mercurial foreboding, sometimes obliterated by interjections of zany jocularity. The musicians revel in these flashes of playful absurdity that become more and more pronounced as the album progresses."-Tripticks Tapes


Artist Biographies

"Bassist, composer, and improviser Sean Ali from Dayton, Ohio has been living in New York City since 2003, where he participates in the city's vibrant experimental music scene both as a performer and curator. His current projects include: Fester, Hag, LathanFlinAli, Mattrey.Bordreuil.Ali, Natura Morta, PascAli, Phantom Circuit, While We Still Have Bodies, and solo performances. He is co-founder and member of the new music label Prom Night Records. He is co-founder and former curator at 65Fen Music Series. Sean Ali performs regularly in New York City and has toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe."

-Sean Ali Website (http://seanali.com/bio)
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

Cecilia Lopez is a composer, musician and multimedia artist from Buenos Aires, Argentina currently based in New York. She works across the media of performance, sound, installation and the creation of sound devices and systems. Lopez holds an MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College and an MA from Wesleyan University in composition (2016). Her work has been performed and exhibited at Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (AR), Center for Contemporary Arts (Vilnius, Lithuania), Roulette Intermedium, Issue Project Room, Ostrava Days Festival 2011 (Ostrava, Czech Republic), MATA Festival 2012, Experimental Intermedia, Fridman Gallery (NY), Kunstnernes Hus (Oslo, Norway) and the XIV Cuenca Biennial, among others. She was a Civitella Ranieri fellow in 2015 and has participated in various international residency programs.In 2019, Lopez curated the intermedia festival Folly Systems coproduced by Roulette Intermedium and Outpost Artists Resources that featured 11 international artists. Collaborators include Carmen Baliero, Aki Onda, Brandon Lopez, John Driscoll, Carrie Schneider and Lars Laumann among others.

(http://www.cecilia-lopez.com/bio/)
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Michael Foster is a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist working in the fields of free improvisation, noise, free jazz, graphic & video notation, performance art, and other forms of weird music.

Foster utilizes extensive preparations of his saxophone, augmenting it with amplification, objects, balloons, drum heads, vibrators, tapes, and samples as a method of subverting and queering the instrumentŐs history and traditional roles.

His current ensembles include duos with cellist Leila Bordreuil, percussionist Ben Bennett, poet/vocalist Lydia Lunch, vocalist Anais Maviel, Richard Kamerman, The Ghost (with Henry Fraser & Connor Baker), Barker Trio (with Tim Dahl, James Ilgenfritz, & Andrew Barker), While We Still Have Bodies (with Sean Ali, Ben Gerstein, & Flin van Hemmen), Weasel Walter Large Ensemble, and BDM (with Ben Bennett and David Grollman).

Selected notable venues he's performed at include Bowling Green State University (Ohio), The Stone (NYC), BimHuis (NL), Jazzfestival Groningen (NL), Fabrica Brao de Prata (PT), Death By Audio (NYC), Studio Loos (NL), Betalevel (Los Angeles), Webster Hall (NYC), XI20 (LT), Jazzclub Erfurt (DE), and many more."

-Michael Foster Website (http://michaelfostermusic.com/)
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Eli Wallace is a pianist, improviser, and composer who resides in Brooklyn, NY, leading his own projects, collaborating with other like-minded artists, and co-curating the interdisciplinary performance series Invocation with Drew Wesely. His work as a pianist displays his vast milieu of experiences from classical, jazz, free improvisation studies, and extensive piano preparation, while his compositions employ notational strategies to broaden the manner in which sounds are created and the ways in which musicians interact. Over the past decade he has appeared on dozens of albums and has performed at such esteemed venues as The Stone, New York, NY, Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago, IL, and the Outsound New Music Summit, San Francisco, CA."

-Eli Wallace Website (https://eliwallacemusic.com/)
12/3/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. Stratosphere 2:24

2. Mesosphere 18:13

SIDE A



1. Thermosphere 8:52

2. Exosphere 17:21

Related Categories of Interest:


Cassettes
Physical Releases that include Download Codes
Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Quartet Recordings
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
New in Improvised Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

Search for other titles on the label:
Tripticks Tapes.


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