“Thollem’s improvisational and compositional wizardry has many dimensions”
– Brad Cohan, Jazz Times
Worlds In A Life is a new project that evolved organically out of Thollem’s most recent album with Nels Cline and Terry Riley (Other Minds Records). Utilizing samples from the six Thollem/Cline Trio albums as the primary sound sources, Thollem has, in essence, created a solo sextet with Nels Cline, Terry Riley, William Parker, Pauline Oliveros, and Michael Wimberly. This is a real-time performance combining electro-acoustic sensibilities with unique keyboard technique and omni-idiomatic improvisation. Creating new sounds from these live re-mixes the results resemble something familiar and at the same time unlike anything else. What if? and Why not? are the two leading questions generating surprises at every twist and turn. The title of the albums and the performance comes from the track titles of the first album with William Parker: “there are as many worlds in a life as there are lives in the world.” This music is a celebration of the limitless palette of sounds and the infinite within each of us, seen and unseen. Thanks to Nels, William, Michael, Pauline, Terry, Porter Records, Relative Pitch, Roaratorio, ESP-Disk’ and Other Minds!
ACVilla will be joining Thollem in performances throughout Europe and N. America in 2024 as a multimedia improvising duo. Worlds In A Life is a meditation on the intrinsic value of every individual in respect to the infinitely complex inner workings, intellectually, historically, biologically, chemically, electrically, psychologically, culturally, and.
Worlds In A Life, One (ESP-Disk’)
“The point, I believe, isn’t to make [the music] sound organic or artificial. Rather, it’s to make something entirely new using used parts created by various trios and mold them into a genuine piece of aural art made by six performers, using the intuition of one.” – S. Victor Aaron, Something Else!
With the WIAL albums, Thollem “pushes even further out, exploring the potentialities of using previous collaborations as source material for surprising new sounds.”
– Daniel Spicer, The Wire
Worlds In A Life, Two (ESP-Disk’)
“The musique concrète of these tracks puts together and deforms sounds from disparate sources, yet somehow feels of a live, organic performance jolted by sharp edits. … provocative and oddly entrancing.”
– S.V.A., Something Else!
WIAL Two “may remind listeners of the avant-garde ’80s rock of the Residents, the Butthole Surfers or Frank Zappa’s Jazz From Hell.”
– Phil Freeman, Downbeat
Dates
Feb 9th (Worldwide) Official Release Of Worlds In A Life, One on ESP-Disk’
Mar 10th (Meldola, IT) @ Area Sismica
Apr 5th (Dublin, IE) Metronome Series @ The National Concert Hall – Release concert for Worlds In A Life, Two on ESP-Disk’
June 15th (Philadelphia, PA) @ Pageant Soloveev (Fire Museum Presents)
June 23rd (Brooklyn, NY) @ Vision Festival at Roulette
Summer (Worldwide) Official Release of Worlds In A Life, Three on ESP-Disk’
Oct 20th (Los Angeles, CA) @ Angel City Jazz Festival
Nov. 19 – Dec. 19 (Palermo, IT) @ Curva Minore – Solo Per Lelio
Thollem/Cline Trio
Thollem/Cline Trio’s collaboration on their first five published albums is available as a digital box set: the first and fifth with William Parker on Porter Records and ESP-Disk’, the 2nd and 4th with Michael Wimberly on Relative Pitch and ESP-Disk’, and the 3rd with Pauline Oliveros on Roaratorio. Other Minds Records has released The Light Is Real with Terry Riley December 2023.
“The session is akin to a sound manifestation from another planet”
– David Cristol, Jazz Magazine (France)
“The result, at once familiar and alien, constitutes
a startlingly fresh take on the free improv ethic“
– Dave Wayne, All About Jazz, NY
“a relentless zigzag of rhythms, densities, and moods that range from
kinetic, tightly wound flurries to calm, meditative queries“
– Peter Margasak, The Chicago Reader
for booking inquiries: contact@thollem.com