Scott L. Miller, kyma
Adam Vidiksis, drum set
Sam Wells, trumpet
What Would John Chowning Do: Part A (21:51)
What Would John Chowning Do?: Part B (14:31)
Worst Impulses (23:07)
Recorded telematically on March 4 & 25, 2021
in Otsego, MN, Wilmington, DE, and Los Angeles, CA
Edited, Mixed, and Mastered by Scott L. Miller
℗© 2021 Scott L. Miller (BMI), Adam Vidiksis (ASCAP), and Sam Wells (ASCAP)
Scott L. Miller, Adam Vidiksis, & Sam Wells perform free music that specializes in telematic improvisation. Their music is marked by propulsive textures and rhythms, graceful emergent structures, and carefully crafted timbres that are seamlessly woven from their composite sounds. Trumpet, drum set, and electronic sound merge to create atmospheres that range from playful and heartfelt to panoramic and profound. Located on the East Coast, West Coast, and the bank of the Mississippi, this trio has cultivated a musical practice that embraces the challenges of distanced, free improvisation to create music that is immediate and arresting.
This debut album documents two performances by the trio, recorded during the unprecedented time of physical distance during COVID-19 lockdown. Working telematically, Miller, Vidiksis, and Wells have developed a unique approach among themselves to listening, time, and coordination. The recording demonstrates one point of listening in the complex interflow of time and latency between the performers.
What Would John Chowning Do? presents a continuous improvisation in two parts. The first is propelled by an unrelenting insistence from the drums, while the trumpet is transfigured and accompanied by Miller’s electronics. The trio tumbles through clicks, roars, thrums, and wails in a persistent energy that demands to breach the distance between them. Timbres reminiscent of Chowning’s work emerge as the group metamorphoses through rhythmic textures that span from caustic beats to mechanical irregularities. Part B continues directly in the same improvisation, but now takes a more serene perspective. Crystalline electronic timbres accompany the trumpet’s slow swells, while sparse percussion alternates between a funeral mass and a child’s music box, developing from contemplative, to ghastly, to incensed before finally winding down to rest.
Starting with a fragile trumpet call on the edge of collapse, Worst Impulses proceeds with a quiet attentiveness that hovers at the threshold of disintegration. Dark gestures emerge, fold, and fade, presenting themselves like fleeting particles before sublimating to the void. In the final moments, the stillness is consumed by a murky incessant hum that overtakes all else.