"Sights and sounds move from place to place with promiscuous gesture. Ships, airplanes, and churning whirlpools appeal more to mechanical economies than street feet sharing pulse rate interiorities. The people twist on metric rails. Oxygen converters reflect swinging diatonics. Blackouts resound. Triggers blackout pots, pans, tin cans, and appropriate Lydian roots, talking tanks, and time-sliced wildlife. By 1950, modernist cultural curdling sacrificed aesthetic convenience for intuitive production and versatility. Most vision is not aggressively enforced, but mutual, after skimming off the scum. Yet, from a simple sonic frame to galvanized iron bars my fight-or-flight electroplating radically changes."-Street Tentacle

Jeff Chan

"Chicago saxophonist/composer Jeff Chan is dedicated to advancing the understanding of the Asian American experience through music. He has worked with many of the leaders of the Asian American creative music movement, including saxophonist Francis Wong and bassist Tatsu Aoki as well as some of the top figures in the Chicago music scene such as saxophonists Jimmy Ellis, Ari Brown, Mwata Bowden and Edward Wilkerson Jr., trumpeter Ameen Muhammad, drummer Avreeayl Ra and pianist/vocalist/bandleader Yoko Noge. With a discography of more than a dozen recordings as a leader, sideman and producer, Chan has performed extensively in the Chicago area, across the nation and in Europe. Critics have said that Chan is "... a voice to be reckoned with... (Brian Gilmore, JazzTimes, April 15, 2010)" and that his work is "music of uncommon majesty, spirituality and emotional depth (Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune, October 11, 2005)."

Da Wei Wang

For nearly 16 years, Da Wei has been a veteran guitar hawk of the Chicago avant-rock scene. He is best known for his guitar work in the legendary industrial punk band, Ono. His fractured, atonal guitar voicing spans a multitude of styles-from Dadaesque funk to existential doom to ambient drones. He applies unique tunings and extended techniques on his guitar to conjure dense, textured landscapes. Using unconventional tools like a hand fan, electric drill, a hand-made bow and magnets, he delicately entices his guitar to produce ethereal timbres and resonances. In March 2021, Da Wei released Liquid Metal Core-a solo guitar album of melting, fuzz-driven drones and blistering soundscapes on Asian Improv Records.

Jerome Bryerton

Jerome Bryerton has been working as a free improvising percussionist for the past eight years. In this time, he has worked with some of the most respected players in the world. In October he was once again acquainted with Berlin multi-reedist Wolfgang Fuchs and San Francisco bassist Damon Smith; presenting two concerts as well as recording on CD (balance point acoustics). In September he worked with bass saxophonist Tony Bevan; with Bevan, he performed in San Francisco with local improvisers Scott Looney and Damon Smith. Last winter Jerome toured in Paris and Monacco with Chicago improvisers Carol Genetti and Andrea Polli. These performances were aligned with the multi media festival I.S.E.A. as, well as the Monacco dance forum. Jerome´s style strikes a resemblance close to the likes of European percussionists Paul Lovens, Paul Lytton, and Le Quan Ninh. Intent on using multi ethnic percussion as well as western percussion - simultaneously furnishing them with an odd assortment of orchestral metal and Chinese cymbals/gongs. Jerome believes that it is necessary to keep intact many of the European aesthetics revolutionized in the sixties and seventies; but which is also crucial is the synthesis of wit and experience of a modern American improviser. As a side note, Jerome has also worked with the following people: trumpeter Axel Dörner, reed player John Butcher, guitarist Henry Kaiser, reedist Peter van Bergen, reedist Jack Wright, cellist Fred Lonbergholm, trombonist Jeb Bishop, and also bassist Kent Kessler.

This album has been reviewed on our magazine:


The Squid's Ear!