The Squid's Ear Magazine


Estamos Trio (McDonas / Escobar / Tamez): Dire Warning (Relative Pitch)

Highlighting issues between the US & Mexican borders, Thollem McDonas' Estamos Trio presents their 2nd album, here with Carmina Escobar (vocals, electronics, guitarron), Milo Tamez (percussion, found objects, electronics) and Thollem (keyboard, vocals, clay pot) in a work commissioned by and recorded at the 2018 "Casa Tomada" (House Taken Over) in Santa Fe for SITE.
 

Price: $13.95



Quantity:

In Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 2.00 units

Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Carmina Escobar-vocals, electronics, guitarron

Milo Tamez-percussion, found objects, electronics

Thollem McDonas-keyboard, vocals, clay pot)


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




UPC: 5902249002249

Label: Relative Pitch
Catalog ID: RPR1101
Squidco Product Code: 28472

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2019
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack
Recorded at SITE, in Santa Fe, California, on October 19th, 2018, by Jono Manson.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Estamos Trio is an exploratory music ensemble formed through the cross-border Estamos Project founded by Thollem McDonas in 2010. The trio includes Carmina Escobar (vocals, electronics, guitarron), Milo Tamez (percussion, found objects, electronics) and Thollem (keyboard, vocals, clay pot). The trio is celebrating their 2nd release on Relative Pitch Records with a series of east coast concerts. Recorded live at SITE Santa Fe, Dire Warning, the work is a commission for SITE's 2018 biennial "Casa Tomada" (House Taken Over), which informed the trio's approach to this album: the present and impending global migration of humans caused by climate change. www.thollem.com/estamostrio

Carmina Escobar is a performer, improviser, sound and intermedia artist from Mexico City. Her work focuses primarily on sound, the voice, the body, and their interrelations to physical, social, memory and present spaces. Mexican creative drummer/composer and independent artist Milo Tamez specializes in solo extended-prepared drum set percussion. He has produced compositions exploring new percussive poetics, cinematic experiences and tour de force drumming manifestos. Tamez also has collaborated with composers premiering new music works for solo drum set percussion. Thollem is a pianist, keyboardist, composer, improviser, singer-songwriter, activist, author and teacher. He's spent his life in perpetual motion, collaborating within scores of arts communities with hundreds of artists. His work is ever changing, evolving and responding to the times and his experiences.

Baltimore native, Bashi Rose is a filmmaker, theatre artist, and musician whose aesthetic is strongly influenced by the Black Arts Movement. He is co-founder of the band, Konjur Collective and member of the percussion duo, Pwisans Ete'nel along with Jamal Moore. He began playing drum kit as a tool for spiritual awareness and healing. He's looking forward to opening for Estamos Trio."-Rui Eduardo Paes Jazz.pt


Artist Biographies

"Carmina Escobar is an experimental vocalist from Mexico City who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. She is on the Voice Arts faculty of California Institute of the Arts and is the co-founder and vocalist of "LIMINAR," a contemporary music ensemble based in Mexico City. Her work is shown regularly at Machine Project. Escobar is most widely known for her work on Massagem Sonora, which gained attention through its role in a large scale collaborative project of the Getty Museum in tangent with Machine Project. She has been awarded several grants and residencies including the Performer's Grant by the National Endowment of the Arts in Mexico twice, and the 2014 NFA Master Artist Grant."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmina_Escobar)
3/27/2024

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

"Milo Tamez. Born 1971 in an artistic family. San Luis Potosí, México.

An incessant researcher, Milo Tamez artistic envision urges for a renewed listening sensitivity on drumming and percussion music. He focuses on percussiveness phenomena in nature and reflects it on his inventive and creative approach to music. His study concentration relates to body-mind interwinding, and eukinetic and proprioceptive body-instrument interrelationship. Continuously exploring into new elements of compositional complexities of pure rhythm and sound in Nature. The psychophysical experiencing of energy in time space in human perception, as a system for a unique foundation for expression and evolution.

Tamez instrumental work evolves from an embodiment of organic integrative element sound organization, that nourishes his constructive imagination and inventiveness. He has been a major leading voice in new creative and experimental music for solo drumming and real time composition performance in México. From the minimal-silent reductionist environments to the more energetic, open space free improvising ones; covering multidisciplinary fields with poetry, painting and video art, dance and performance, audiovisual installations and space interventions.

His collaboration with other artists includes AvantJazz projects, New Chamber Music Ensembles, Free Improvisation, Contemporary Dance and Theater, Experimental Music, Film and Visual Arts. He has been active in festivals and art encounters, performing solo and in collaboration with many worldwide renown artists and musicians.

He lives in Mexico City since 2017, creating, developing and producing projects like POLLOCK tambores pintores, TALLER ABIERTO, FIELDS, COLLAGE ENSEMBLE, as participating with many other collaborative projects."

-Milo Tamez Website (https://www.milotamez.com.mx/biografia/)
3/27/2024

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

"Thollem is a pianist, keyboardist, organist, composer, improviser, singer-songwriter, activist, author and teacher. He's spent his life skirting and erasing the edges of boundaries musically, culturally, geographically. His work is ever changing, evolving and responding to the times and his experiences, both as a soloist and in collaboration with hundreds of artists across idioms and disciplines. Though Thollem's widely known as an acoustic piano player, he's also the lead vocalist for the Italian agit-punk band Tsigoti and has recently branched out significantly into the world of electronics through a multitude of projects.

Thollem was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, studying the standard classical piano repertoire, composing and improvising since he was a young child and absorbing the myriad of sounds of his culturally diverse upbringing. After dedicating his 20s and 30s to grassroots political activism, he's refocused his attention these last 15 years on a breadth of musics that incorporate his myriad experiences and curiosities. In this last decade alone, he has played well over 1,000 concerts throughout N. America and Europe as a soloist and in collaboration with hundreds of musicians, dancers, and filmmakers. As leader or co-leader, he has released over 50 albums in that span on 22 different vanguard labels to international critical acclaim. "Thollem is an astounding pianist who understands the huge scope of the instrument" (Terry Riley) and who continues to delve into the furthest reaches and sub-genres of Post-Classical, Free Jazz, Noise, Punk, dance and film. A brief cross section of his many recent collaborators include William Parker, Pauline Oliveros, Stefano Scodanibbio, Nels Cline, Mike Watt, Rob Mazurek, Martha Colburn and ACVilla. He is the founding director of Estamos Ensemble, a Mexican-American cross border ensemble for musical exchange as well as the lead singer of the Italian agit-punk band Tsigoti. Presently Thollem is developing an audio/visual experience about America through an 8 month, 48 state odyssey with his partner the videographer ACVilla. He's also a published author about art, politics and his travels in The Anthology of Essays On Deep Listening, Full Moon Magazine (Prague) and First American Art Magazine."

-Thollem McDonas Website (http://www.thollem.com/bio.html)
3/27/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. The Brink Of Failure 17:27

2. Global Climate Genocide 3:56

3. Ecological Solitaire 5:43

4. Hurricanes Of Change 5:23

5. The Sixth Extinction 7:01

6. The First Extermination 7:08

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
West Coast/Pacific US Jazz
Trio Recordings
Unusual Vocal Forms
Objects and Home-made Instruments

Search for other titles on the label:
Relative Pitch.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Rodrigues / Parrinha / McDonas / Flak / Oliveira
The Fleeting Nature Of Time
(Creative Sources)
Excellent pacing with introspective richness and detail through five improvisations, as US pianist Thollem McDonas joins Portuguese improvisers Ernesto Rodrigues on viola, Bruno Parrinha on alto clarinet, Flak on acoustic guitar and Jose Oliveira on percussion for this studio recording in Lisbon, each passage reflecting a word from the title; inspired and beautiful.
Thollem / Wimberly / Cline
Radical Empathy
(Relative Pitch)
A trio of collective-improvisers recording in NYC's East Village in 2015 for exceptionally sympathetic dialog, instigated by electric keyboard improvisor Thollem McDonas, with Nels Cline on guitar and Charles Gayle cohort Michael Wimberly on drums; Fred Frith liner notes!
Other Recommended Releases:
Dykstra, Jordan / Brian McOmber
Blow the Man Down (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
(Editions Verde)
A powerful set of succint compositions, themes and sea shanties for the soundtrack for Danielle Krudy and Bridget Savage Cole's film Blow the Man Down , scored through the collaboration of composers Jordan Dykstra, who also performs on viola, piano, prepared piano, vibraphone & percussion, and Brian Mcomber, who also performs on keyboards and percussion.
Masked Pickle (Scemama / Malmendier / Weil)
7
(Relative Pitch)
A fully free, quirky and marvelous set of virtually indescribable improvisation from the trio of French vocalist Clara Weill (known from her work with Fred Frith), Olivia Scemama on bass and Tom Malmendier on drums, three active international collaborators with powerful technical skills and a strange sense of humor willing to take their music where ever it oddly leads.
Thollem
Obstacle Illusion
(Astral Spirits)
Taken from concerts during Thollem's 3-month European tour, at Centro d'Arte dell'Università di Padova; AngelicA at Teatro San Leonardo in Bologna; and Rassegna di Nuova Musica 39, performing on acoustic pianos or a Korg Wavestate, showing his technically impressive, creative drive over a diverse set of approaches to solo piano improvisation.
Thollem's Astral Traveling Sessions
w/ Avreeayl Ra & Matt Lux / Sunken Cages
(Astral Spirits)
As part of Thollem McDonas' Astral Traveling Sessions concert series, the pianist met Chicago legendary drummer Avreeayl Ra and and highly active improvising bassist Matthew Lux for this exceptional concert of two extended improvisations, followed by 8 duo studio improvisations as "Sunken Cages" recorded in Philadelphia with electroacoustic drummer Ravish Momin.
Thollem's Astral Traveling Sessions
Thollem + Karl Berger, Thollem + Michael Snow
(Astral Spirits)
One of a series of pianist Thollem McDonas' Astral Traveling Sessions, a 25-album series of concerts from around the globe, performing concerts in varying configurations with 70 musicians, here with two collaborations: in Kingston, NY with the great vibraphonist Karl Berger for 3 improvisations, and in Toronto with pianist Michael Snow for an extended piano duo.
Thollem's Astral Traveling Sessions
w/ Hafez Modirzadeh
(Astral Spirits)
One of a series of pianist Thollem McDonas' Astral Traveling Sessions, this unique duo configuration with NY saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh uses a sonic palette of eight re-tuned pitches for piano and saxophone in an attempt to expand harmonic empathy, bringing Eastern pitch relationships to Western improvisation through a series of extraordinary solo and duo recordings.
Thollem's Astral Traveling Sessions
Compilation Cassette [CASSETTE w/ DOWNLOAD]
(Astral Spirits)
Travelling through the US & Greece to join with performers for duos and trios, in six recordings between pianist Thollem McDonas in a trio with Amy Denio & Samantha Boshnack; a duo with Seetha Shivaswamy; a trio with Mat Weisman and Rick Kodramaz; a duo with Djallo Djakate; a hand percussion duo with Jason Finkelman; and a vocal duo with Maria Karamouza.
Doneda, Michel / Frederic Blondy / Tetsu Saitoh
Spring Road 16
(Relative Pitch)
After 30 years of collaboration between French saxophonist Michel Doneda and Japanese double bassist Tetsu Saitoh, this 2016 recording was to be their last due to the premature passing of Saitoh, the two heard here in a trio with pianist Frederic Blondy recorded for Radio France in a remarkable and consuming performances of fully free and often darkly savage improvisation.
Thollem (w/ Alex Cline / Susan Alcorn)
Thollem's Astral Traveling Sessions
(Astral Spirits)
In 2019 pianist Thollem McDonas toured the US -- 12 months and 25 albums worth of recordings -- joining collaborators from a vast spectrum of improvisers and performers, this album presenting two such recordings: one a duo with drummer/percussionist Alex Cline from a live concert in Santa Monica; the other a duo with guitarist Susan Alcorn recorded in Baltimore.
Pitsiokos, Chris
Speak In Tongues And Hope For The Gift Of Interpretation
(Relative Pitch)
Dedicating his pieces to Charlie Parker, Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and John Zorn, NY alto saxophonist Chris Pitsiokos is heard live at this solo concert in New Haven, CT in 2019, reflecting on the history of jazz through his intense playing style that deploys incredible technique balanced with abstraction and rapid lyricism.
Urabe, Masayoshi
What Hasn't Come Here, COME!
(Relative Pitch)
An absolutely idiosyncratic style in performance, Japanese alto saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe, also on harmonica and voice, is heard in a single extended performance at Sakedelic Space Shuyukan in Shiga, Japan, as the listener experiences the performance through his playing, physical motion, aberrant racket, arduous utterance, and inexplicable moments of silence and sound.
Schindler, Udo / Jaap Blonk
Hillside Talks
(Relative Pitch)
Performing in Krailling-Munich at Udo Schindler's Salon fur Klang+Kunst in 2018, Netherland free improvising, brilliantly mad vocalist Jaap Blonk joins the reed master for ten acoustic improvisations with Schindler on a variety of reeds and brass instruments, the dialog authoritatively informed, masterful, slightly deranged, and continuously captivating.
Pavone, Jessica
In The Action
(Relative Pitch)
Four distinct pieces for solo viola and effects from NY composer/improviser Jessica Pavone, each piece using electronic elements to blur wave motions interacting with minimalist motifs, merging folk elements with avant elements, using extended bowing techniques to blend unlikely matches of acoustics and electronics in unconventional and appealing performance.
Flamingo (Chris Heenan / Adam Pultz Melbye / Christian Windfeld / Roy Carroll)
Loud
(Relative Pitch)
This Berlin-based collaboration with sound engineer Roy Carroll performing on electronics features the trio of Chris Heenan on contrabass clarinet, Adam Pultz Melbye on double bass, and Christian Windfeld on snare drum, percussion & objects, using a reductionist approach to deep sonic improvisation of mysterious origins, in an extended journey of sound.
Richards, Stephanie
Full Moon
(Relative Pitch)
An extremely interesting experimental record of free improvisation and electronics from the duo of Dino J.A. Deane and trumpeter Stephanie Richards, whose work with Henry Threadgill and Butch Morris is felt in these pieces where Richards explores resonance in brass and percussion as Deane samples and manipulates her playing live; an inventive and effusive album.
Nauseef, Mark
All In All In all
(Relative Pitch)
Influenced by rock, jazz, Javanese and Balinese gamelan, NY drummer Mark Nauseef's career has embraced an inclusive blending of styles, heard in this fantastic new album embracing compositional and ea styles, recorded with previous collaborators including Tony Oxley, Bill Laswell, Walter Quintus, along with Sylvie Courvoisier, Pat Thomas, Miroslav Tadic, & Arthur Jarvinen.
Mayas, Magda / Jim Denley
Tempe Jetz
(Relative Pitch)
A pairing of two innovative players, Berlin-based pianist Magda Mayas and Australian sound and wind artist Jim Denley, Mayas playing inside and out of the piano and Denley on alto sax and bass flute, both providing field recordings adding unexpected elements in a set of extremely balanced recordings that entrance the listener with unlikely and captivating settings.
Thollem / Mazurek
Blind Curves and Box Canyons
(Relative Pitch)
Recorded at an exhibition of visual works by Chicago trumpeter Rob Mazurek in Texas, this was the first meeting with pianist Thollem McDonas, in an ardent session of explorative improvisation using electric and analog piano, sythn, samplers, cornet, voice, bells and effects; inquisitive and cathartic music of great drive.
TSIGOTI
Read Between The Lines...Think Outside Them
(Post Consumer)
The TSIGOTI quarter brings together Italians Jacopo Andreini on guitar, Andrea Caprara on drums, and Piero Spitilli on bass with California pianist Thollem McDonas for critical avant punk with a technically brilliant flair.
Estamos Trio
People's Historia
(Relative Pitch)
Taking song titles from the Arawak language, the Estamos Trio of Thollem McDonas (piano), Milo Tamez (drums) and Carmina Escobar (voice & electronics) brings together artists from the Mexican/U.S. border, creating beautiful creative works.



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Shiraishi, Tamio
Moon
(Relative Pitch)
Known for his resonant solo alto saxophone work, often recording with the New York City subways, this album presents ten unusual duos between Tamio Shiraishi and improvisers on piano, voice, cello, electronics, bass, guitar and sax, with Tim Dahl, Steve Baczkowski, Mico, Mike Sidnam, Austin Sley Julian, Nina Dante, Tara Fenamore, Leila Bordreuil, Chris Libutti, and Ami Yamasaki.
Smith, Ches / We All Break
Path of Seven Colors [2 CDs]
(Pyroclastic Records)
Drummer and composer Chess Smith in a 2-CD set of pieces merging jazz and traditional vodou rhythms, the band featuring Matt Mitchell (piano), Miguel Zenón (saxophone), Nick Dunston (bass), Sirene Dantor Rene (lead vocals), with Daniel Brevil, Markus Schwartz and Fanfan Jean-Guy Rene all on Haitian tanbou drums & vocals, released in a hardshell box with booklets.
Courvoisier / Halvorson
Searching For The Disappeared Hour
(Pyroclastic Records)
The second collaboration between pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson, six years after Crop Circles and a product of their tours together and the result of their both writing compositions specifically for their duo project, showing a level of communication that allows incredible inventiveness and moments of poignant exchange; exceptional.
Schoenbeck, Sara
Sara Schoenbeck
(Pyroclastic Records)
A document of bassoonist Sara Shoenbeck's collaborations recorded between 2019-2021 in recording studios across North America, showing the inspired curiosity she brings to improvisation through a diverse set of duos performed with Harris Eisenstadt, Nicole Mitchell, Nels Cline, Roscoe Mitchell, Matt Mitchell, Mark Dresser, Wayne Horvitz, Peggy Lee and Robin Holcomb.



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC