September’s here again” – David Sylvian

Time surely does fly, this being one of the most difficult times of my life, but also, wonderfully filled with new life, work, and art. It’s a bit of a blur really but life in transition is quite disorienting to say the least. Music and photography has helped me continue to stay focused and sustain while attempting to get myself acclamated again. While trying to get this together, I’ve managed to release some new 1k albums which i am very happy with: Goldbug-The Seven Dreams, Tim Motzer & Markus Reuter-Descending, the (shortly forthcoming) BASE3_Live From Earth, and digital download: BASE3_Live@Northstar. I’ve played a Tilomo solo guitar soundscape show at Knitting Factory Brooklyn that was webcast (with more footage to be available soon), and numerous shows with BASE3, tours with Ursula Rucker, Dance choreography and improvisation workshops with Manfred Fischbeck, Video and bumper music for bammtv + webillishus, 2 live 1k Sessions webcasts (so far) featuring BASE3 and a brand new in studio Tilomo 90 minute soundscape performance (als o, coming soon!).  Production-wise: Besides all the 1k stuff, I mixed/assembled/edited/coloured the forth-coming Grimace Federation album (a tour de force that logged many a studio hour!) Jeff Chestek also was on board for this one. “Heroes of Epic Proportions.” Session-wise, I’ve worked on the new Tuner record called FACE with Markus Reuter and drummer Pat Mastelotto, logging in 60-70 hours of collaborating and tracking guitar and other instruments, on what is an enormous scale work by Markus Reuter. While I was in Salzburg, Austria, I was interviewed for the forthcoming film documentary: Older Than God, an art film based around Reuter’s life and music making. As it goes, I was invited by UK-producer Lee Fletcher to track on 3 new songs on the forthcoming Judy Dyble (Fairport Convention) album.  Canadian band Boudion Soundclash + producer King Britt invited me to add banjo, guitar, and ukelele on their upcoming record.

Last year, I collaborated and performed on the entire new Ursula Rucker album entitled ‘She Said’ (out in October 2010). It’s a live in studio record feauring some of Philly’s finest musicians, and the UK-bassist/producer Anthony Tidd. We created the music on the spot in the studio with Ursula’s prepared poems, and recorded them live as they came together. It was an amazing experience, and is a beautiful album. The debut of the new material happened last night at Johnny Brendas in Philadelphia to a wonderful audience. Looking forward to more live performances this year!

Ottokar (TM w/ Wally Smith, and Jim Menesis)

I’ve been continuing to play with the band Ottokar with keyboardist/organist Wally Smith, drummer/percussionist Jim Menesis, and myself. I really love both of these guys playing. You’d be hard pressed to find guys that play like this, these days. Wally from the school of Jimmy Smith meets Keith Emerson(the Nice-era), Mike Ratledge (soft machine), Dave Stewart (egg, national health)… As I understand it, his father was an organist as well, and had a retail store that sold organs, and tape recorders and some of the first multi-track recorders…Wally and Jim are amazing to play with…We have been having fun with our bi-monthly sessions at the Tritone in Philly.

As if this wasn’t enough, in August Global illage re-formed for the String Cheese Incident Festival in Portland, Oregon. The band includes myself, Chris Cuzme, Danny Sears, and Jim Hamilton. While out there, we were fortunate enough to have time to track at Prince Elwood Strickland III brand new studio, and have 5 hours of material recorded. I suspect at least one album, but perhaps two records to come from the treasure that awaits!  

So a whole world of stuff going on in there, working towards new 1k releases still to come, including Nucultures – Karma Guru. You can find out more about all of the above elsewhere on the site, and as always, thanks for all the support of 1k and my gigs. It is much appreciated. more to come!