Four years after the release of their debut album, WORK, Buffalo-based new music collective Wooden Cities returns with their second release, PLAY. Embracing lighter, more whimsical subject matter than its predecessor, the album leans into the playful—and occasionally volatile—absurdity that regional audiences will know from the ensemble's live performances.

The album is structured around four realizations from Baltimore composer Will Redman's graphic score magnum opus, Book.  In these spirited interpretations, the musicians survey a range of textures from dense, sinewy counterpoint to threadbare pianissimos, while always taking advantage of  the piece's deeply-rooted expressive freedom.

The remainder of the album explores three lively sound poetry pieces, beginning with a riotous four-voice arrangement of Berlin Dadaist Kurt Schwitters' Ribble Bobble Pimlico. The band ludicrously alternates between reassuring whispers and clamorous chants while articulating the titular nonsensical words in ever-sillier combinations.  This vein of exploration continues on two pieces by members of the ensemble: trombonist Ethan Hayden's setting of an excerpt of Gertrude Stein's poem "In", and violinist Evan Courtin's setting of Marina Blitshteyn's "Good Form," the latter a darkly comic rendering of a discomfiting interior monologue.

Formed in 2011 as a structured improv orchestra, Wooden Cities has since garnered a reputation for their dynamic performances of both improvised and notated works of new and experimental music from a wide variety of composers. PLAY is the second in a trilogy of albums (WORK/PLAY/REST), with the third coming in 2024.

Full album available at:
https://woodencities.bandcamp.com/album/play

PLAY

Wooden Cities - Kurt Schwitters - Ribble Bobble Pimlico

Crossfire Duo consisted of percussionists Bob Fullex and Jason Bauers.  The two drummers met as teenagers in the wintry barracks of Buffalo, NY, and took their name from one of the first pieces they tackled, Richard Festinger’s Gordian, stamina-testing, Crossfire, which they spent a year perfecting.

Always a collaborative project, Crossfire built their distinctive repertoire from the ground up, commissioning new works from Rust Belt-based composers with whom they worked very closely, allowing these artists to help shape the duo into what it became (their only stipulation being that each piece’s percussion battery be able to wedge into a small sedan for touring). Through intense basement sessions marked by trial, error, and experimentation, Crossfire and their collaborators cultivated an eccentric arsenal of pieces marked by a variety of newly-developed and highly-nuanced techniques, including some works–like Jacob Gotlib’s Portrait Sequence (Blanching Out)–that didn’t even involve striking a single object.

Crossfire hung up their sticks in 2013, but not before they executed an impressive recording of some of the key pieces of their rep.  Recently unearthed, their album Vellum features two works by the duo's composer-collaborators: Gotlib's Portrait Sequence and Matt Sargent's Small Stones, the latter played entirely on diaphanous, high-frequency metallophones. The set open's with Crossfire's namesake composition, demonstrating the duo's virtuosic force with Festinger's unpredictable high-speed staccato constructions. 

A decade after its recording, Vellum is finally being released in June of 2023.

Vellum

Crossfire Duo - Gotlib - Portrait Sequence (Blanching Out)

Crossfire Duo - Festinger - Crossfire:  I. Allegro Molto

Michael McNeill is a pianist, improviser, and composer based in Buffalo, NY. While living in eastern Virginia, he started the quartet Allegories, with Baltimore-based musicians Susan Alcorn (pedal steel guitar), Dave Ballou (trumpet), and Shelly Purdy (vibraphone & percussion).

Barcode Poetry is the culmination of this quartet's first tour in June 2022. The band spent a week on the road, going from rural eastern Virginia to Detroit, developing McNeill’s tunes and deepening the band’s chemistry. In the studio, the band distilled its sprawling improvisations into concise, focused performances.

McNeill describes the project, "As with many bands I organize, I went into it assuming it would be a fun, one-off project that would probably never play again. Somehow, though, this seemingly unwieldy combination of instruments proved to be an ideal vehicle for our individual and collective explorations, and, perhaps most importantly, our personalities meshed well, too. Our 2022 tour was further proof that we were a band. For those of you who didn’t get to hear us on the road then, I hope the focused, distilled performances on the present recording (made just after the end of our tour) will give you a window into the collective energy we cultivated that week."

"Barcode Poetry is an album that provides a different aural experience on each hearing.  The musicians usher the listener through this journey document, a collection of unique moments that occurred one time, never to be duplicated. By entering their artistic sphere without expectations, we can be rewarded with fresh sounds and a cleansing of our listening ears. Maybe this is the 'Double Memory' that the last track refers to, or as the alternative Negative Memory." — Jon Nelson, Founder - Meridian Arts Ensemble; Professor - University at Buffalo

Elegy

Timeigrant

Dedicated to Ibrahim Ahmed Nasser Shaqura, a child that died in Gaza before his first birthday
Performed by Dave Tamulonis (piano, synthesizer, guitar, violin, electronics, programming)
Composed by Dave Tamulonis 
Published by Shadow Plea 
Copyright 2024, Dave Tamulonis

Released on Rust Belt Artists Against Genocide:
https://infrasonicpress.bandcamp.com/album/rust-belt-artists-against-genocide

Shadow Plea - Ibrahim, Sunlight Streaming through the Windows, Illuminating Dust

Performed in 7-limit just intonation for some reason 
Recorded on land stolen from the Haudenosaunee, among other Indigenous peoples
Field recordings by kyles
Mastered by Matt Sargent
CC0/Public Domain (Everything for everyone, and nothing for ourselves)
Music by Zeinab Shaath, lyrics by Lalita Panjabi

Originally recorded by Zeinab Shaath, released on The Urgent Call of Palestine (1972), Cultural Arts Section Palestine Liberation Organization; recently reissued by Majazz Project and Discostan after being held since 1982 among cultural materials stolen from the PLO by the IDF

Published by Zeinab Shaath

Released on Rust Belt Artists Against Genocide:
https://infrasonicpress.bandcamp.com/album/rust-belt-artists-against-genocide

The International Workers’ Synthesizer/Guitar Alliance - The Urgent Call of Palestine

Dedicated to Refaat Alareer & Hind Rijab
Performed by Timothy Georger (mixing boards, feedback, dice rolls) at the University at Buffalo about a week after campus administration approved of the brutalization of peaceful pro- testors at the hands of several local police departments, who themselves specifically targeted visibly Muslim students.
Post-production by Tim Georger

ideation is an improvisational piece that utilizes a technique known as no-input mixing. Developed by Japanese avant-garde performer Toshimaru Nakamura, and a staple in the world of industrial & noise music, performers play a mixer whose outputs are plugged into its own inputs. This amplifies small signals into audible feedback loops similar to how a microphone placed close to a speaker will start playing a harsh tone. Using the mixer, the performer is able to design the sound by changing various settings on the mixing board. The mixer is a complex system of feedback loops however, and is prone to chaotic, unexpected changes that the performer has to respond to. 

This limited control is further emphasized by the score itself, which utilizes random chance to make crucial structural decisions. The composition—influenced by games such as Dungeons & Dragons and the roguelike genre in video games—is structured as a game which utilizes dice rolls in order to determine how the performer improvises. The performer must follow the prompts given by these dice rolls, but they are given a limited number of points at the beginning of the piece, which they may spend to change how various aspects of the improvisation is performed. 

When taken all together, a performance of ideation wanders through a shifting possibility space—the set of all possible options at one point—in order to navigate the improvisation. Performers must not only choose how to improvise at any one moment, but also how to spend their limited points wisely, and determine the direction they want the performance to go in through the choices they make in response to random chance. 

This performance utilizes several forms of feedback, which may result in loud, high pitched sounds. Audience discretion is advised.

Tim Georger is an experimental electronic musician from Buffalo interested in sound design and the application of ludic structures into musical composition. A link to his works can be found at https://timgeorger.carrd.co/

Full score in the booklet that accompanies Rust Belt Artists Against Genocide:
https://infrasonicpress.bandcamp.com/album/rust-belt-artists-against-genocide

Timothy Georger - ideation (Live at UB; 14 Rounds 4 Points)

Skeletonized started in 2012 as a solo recording project that consisted of drums and electronics. Through the years, the live band has included saxophone, bass, guitar, synthesizer, samples and vocals. The band's current sound is inspired by a wide range of musical influences that include no wave, free jazz, noise, punk & avant garde elements.

Performed by Erik (guitar), Luke (saxophone), Matt (drums) 
Composed, recorded, and published by Skeletonized Copyright 2024, Skeletonized 
https://skeletonized.bandcamp.com

Released on Rust Belt Artists Against Genocide:
https://infrasonicpress.bandcamp.com/album/rust-belt-artists-against-genocide

Skeletonized - 8.11.24

“Ya Lel Ma Atwalak” is a lullaby sung from the perspective of a woman alone at night, a lullaby sung from a mother to her adult son. In the song, she declares that it doesn’t matter how long she’ll be away from her parents, she already misses them, and will always miss them.

Performed by Nibal Abd El Karim (voice)
Recorded and mixed by Ethan Hayden, mastered by Matt
Sargent
Copyright 2024, Nibal Abd El Karim
Traditional, originally adapted/arranged by Rim Banna, Knut Reiersrud, Kari Bremnes and released on Lullabies from the Axis of Evil (2004), Valley Entertainment 2-VLT- 15187
Published by NCB Scandinavia

Released on Rust Belt Artists Against Genocide:
https://infrasonicpress.bandcamp.com/album/rust-belt-artists-against-genocide

Nibal Abd El Karim - Ya Lel Ma Atwalak (This Never Ending Night)

Infrasonic Press is an independent record label and publishing company based in Erie, PA. Our mission is to release music and art by adventurous composers, performers, bands, poets, and sound artists from the American Rust Belt.

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