Blood Like Red is the 3rd track from the 2014 Music From An Expanded Universe album. The video features Leon Alvarado on Keyboards and Drums. Trey Gunn (King Crimson, The Security Project) on Warr Guitar and Bass and Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel, Hall & Oates) on Taos Drums percussion. Produced by Leon Alvarado, Engineered by Leon Alvarado, Trey Gunn and Mastered by Andy Jackson
For years I had wanted to add visuals to what it is one of my favorite pieces from my music. Leon Alvarado
Leon Alvarado is Texas-based prog drummer, keyboardist, composer, and illustrator, Alvarado has recorded with many talented musicians including Bill Bruford (Gong, Yes, Genesis, Earthworks), John Goodsall (Brand X, Fire Merchants), Trey Gunn (King Crimson), Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel, Hall & Oates, Paul McCartney), Billy Sherwood (Yes, Asia), Rick Wakeman and Tony Levin.
On the graphics front I have done album covers and touring materials for bands such as Brand X, Genesis, Phil Collins, Jethro Tull, Jeff Beck, Peter Gabriel, Roger Waters, The Australian Pink Floyd Show, and King’s X.
A Critics Point of View
This is not one of those balls-to-walls prog-rock affairs. For instance on “Blood Like Red,” the artists execute a slowly moving and budding rock pulse, steered by Gunn’s prominent bass lines, in support of the leader’s polytonal voicings, sounding somewhere in between a mellotron and synth strings type soundscape. Moreover, Alvarado layers a tabla vibe to incorporate a world music background into the mix, followed by Gunn’s stinging and crunchy Warr guitar notes. All About Jazz
“Blood Like Red” starts and ends with atmospheric wind effects with the middle brimming with Alvarado’s spacier synth exploits and Gunn’s textural Warr guitar crunch. It is here the band really gets into a full but subtle groove. Jon Neudorf – Sea of Tranquility
The Return, the highly anticipated second recording by the eclectic music ensemble, Deep Energy Orchestra will be released on February 21, 2020, on Trey Gunn’s 7D Media record label. Deep Energy Orchestra blends sounds and rhythms from Prog Rock, Classical, funk, Indian, and Flamenco styles and showcases the compositions of Jason Everett aka Mister E.
Featured artists on the record include Fareed Haque (Billy Cobham, Zawinal Syndicate), V. Selvaganesh (Shakti with John McLaughlin), Trey Gunn (King Crimson), Neyvili Radhakrishna (Jonas Hellborg), Ujwal Nagar (Advaita), Suhail Yusuf Khan, and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra.
Following the acclaimed first release, Playing With Fire, Jason was commissioned by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra to score his music as well as pieces from Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar, and Paco deLucia for a full-length concert called “From Spain to India” and one of the pieces from that concert series is included on The Return.
Another piece on The Return is an example of Jason’s compositional “sonic-storytelling” called “Moksha: The Elimination of All Duality.” This nearly 17-minute piece is in four movements and tells the story of a soul, from starting in a traditional village to a battle with death to a liberated soul, and then the Return to this world with musical echoes of the past and present.
Jason Everett is a performer, composer, and producer who plays a variety of stringed and percussive instruments with his primary instruments being his seven-string fretless bass and acoustic six-string bass. Jason attended Northern Arizona University on a full scholarship for bassoon and started playing jazz professionally at sixteen years old.
Jason has played music outside of the mainstream for most of his career including with the avant-garde space-jazz ensemble, Little Green Men; Flamenco fusion groups, Machete’, Deseo Carmin, and Acoustic Fantasy; world fusion groups, Avaaza, Tarana, and Andre Feriante; and Kirtan artists, Gina Sala’ and Girish. Jason has also been recently performing and recording with Bay Area world jazz fusion groups, Facing East and Ancient Future. Jason has created his own groups including Taal Maya, a Shakti inspired Indian fusion project and Pandamonium, which is described as “Prog Rock Jazz Funk.”
Here’s what’s been said about Jason Everett:
“Through his performance and compositional work, Jason has built respect with major members of the Indian music community and has been hailed by influential guitarists and bassists.” – Geoffrey Larsen, Musical Director of Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra
“Everett delivers memorable melodies rendered with Eastern vocal vibrato, and engaging ensemble improvisation – all over a spectrum of ever-shifting world grooves and natural-sounding odd meters.” – Bass Guitar Magazine
“Jason’s impressive bass work will dazzle, but his playing transcends the instrument to become a pure source of expression. His compositions are equally full of wonder and atmosphere for a sonic journey. A top-notch musician!”– Kevin Johnson NoTreble Bass Magazine
Crystal Beth is what happens if you cross Frank Zappa, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, and Janice Joplin
Crystal Beth unleashes her first full-length studio record, PUSH THRU, a solo incarnation using wailing vocals, amplified clarinet, beat-boxing and electronics to weave a sonic universe all her own. The album will be released on Trey Gunn’s 7D Media on October 18, 2019. Beth has been described as “world music from an imaginary planet..quite compelling & magical” (Seattle Times), “a supremely versatile and virtuosic maverick” (The Stranger), and “one of the most fearless and innovative musicians in the city…” (Earshot Jazz). Known for crafting aural rituals that encompass industrial chants, alien disco breaks, heart gushings, and robot love songs, Crystal Beth redefines the possibilities of the voice and clarinet in tight experimental pop songs and undulating, cathartic noise cries. Crafting moments that ricochet between meditation and a full body purge, she is an electric, adrenaline inducing performer voted Seattle’s Best Classical Musician and nominated for NW Vocalist of the Year.
Rooted and defined by singing in her own syllabic language, Crystal Beth began in 2010 and she performs solo using loop pedals and delays, and a five-piece rock outfit (the Boom Boom Band) to craft and explore her idiosyncratic and distinctive original music. Seattle’s The Stranger magazine writes “You can find {Crystal Beth} fearlessly indulging her wildest creative inklings whenever she materializes in a musical forum…Crystal Beth & the Boom Boom Band falls somewhere between the grisly skronk-punk of Stickers and earthy freak-indie of tUnE-yArDs, but even fans of those left-of-center acts will be thrown for a loop. Wailing vocals not bound to any conventions but {her} own, paired with percussive ‘Bethnic chants,’ are set over freely drawn jazz figures and world-y rhythms.”
The music on this record is primal and visceral, sweet and expansive. It’s a completely solo work- recorded in 2 days of full live takes at Studio Litho with engineer Floyd Reitsma (Pearl Jam, Audioslave, Dave Matthews Band), mixed by Marcel Fernandez (Foo Fighters, ZZ Top, Molotov), and mastered by Michael Cozzi (Sky Cries Mary, Security Project, Bill Rieflin). With artwork by Mexican artist Ale De la Torre, Crystal Beth’s PUSH THRU is available on vinyl, CD, and digitally.
With the reflexes of a mongoose, Crystal Beth spins cathartic hardcore purge pop art punk – sweaty, trance inducing, heart-pouring – these are sonic cupcakes for your soul.
Crystal Beth has 20 years of professional international performances under her full name, Beth Fleenor, where she has been featured on recordings with polymaths including Wayne Horvitz, Jherek Bischoff, and Julie Slick, and includes performances with David Byrne, Terry Riley, Butch Morris, Bobby Previte, Trey Gunn, Robin Holcomb, Joshual Kohl/Degenerate Art Ensemble, Matana Roberts, Skerik, Tamar Kali, LaFrae Sci, Seattle Symphony, Wordless Music Orchestra, Samantha Boshnack, Led To Sea, Mirah, Soko, William O. Smith, Eyvind Kang, Malcom Goldstein, Jessika Kenney, Paris Hurley / Object As Subject, Timothy Young, John Tchicai, Gretta Harley, Mike Dillon, Briggan Krauss, Parenthetical Girls, Gino Yevdjevich/Kultur Shock, Amy Denio, and Shane Parish & Ryan Oslance / Ahleuchatistas – often doing upward of 170 shows a year in different genres.
Her work has been heard in 100,000 seat rock festivals, maximum-security prisons, and some of the most prestigious concert halls, museums, clubs and theaters in the world. Believing that “art is the discipline of being,” Fleenor uses sound to open the channels of communication between and within individuals and environments. Her work as been heard in live music, recordings, theater, performance art, installation, modern dance, and film. She believes that “an emphasis on creativity in a culture gives rise to creative solutions to social problems.”
Along with the straight-forward stamp of “excellent” from the New York Times, Fleenor has been called an “exceptional clarinetist” by the Seattle Times, and The Seattle Weekly writes, “If you’re getting tired of music that’s even remotely formulaic, Beth Fleenor is for you. Her experimental mixing of genres is powerful and refreshing.” Earshot Jazz has described her as “one of the most fearless and innovative musicians in the city…” and City Arts Magazine remarks “Beth Fleenor transcends labels – a multi-talented, creative force in Seattle.”
Crystal Beth began after Fleenor spent years collaborating with other musicians and artists, when she starting bursting at the seams with her own compositions. After years as a free improviser, Crystal Beth is Fleenor’s first project that focuses entirely on her original songs.
She speaks personally about the project, “I believe in the power of sound to clear the body and cleanse the soul. Music is a powerful tool as a listener and as a maker. It changes the state of things internally. I think we need a way to deal with ourselves so that we can better deal with each other….and when we have that, it leads us to a different way of conducting ourselves – a way of empathy, compassion, awareness, consideration, communication – a mutual respect of shared experience. We need focusing agents that help us process experiences – a way to make sense of it all – a way to get it to move through our bodies. Transcendent happiness, and deep tragedy, and everything in between, we need some kind of a ritual to catch up with ourselves in the present moment, to be able to move forward in a state of personal alignment. Crystal Beth is how I deal with myself, how I heal myself, how I Push Thru to the deepest parts of myself, and begin again every single day. My hope is that by sharing my most vulnerable self, perhaps it will offer a moment of the same catharsis and solace to others.”
RECORD RELEASE PARTY Thursday, October 24 at Substation (Seattle) Crystal Beth with special guest Alex Faide, Trey Gunn, RGK + the Alternative Facts, and Devils in Skirts
Fleenor holds a Bachelor of Music in Jazz and Classical Clarinet Performance from Cornish College of the Arts. Her work has been supported by Jack Straw Productions, 4Culture, Allied Arts, Artist Trust, the Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. Crystal Beth’s solo record PUSH THRU was brought to life through patrons on the Indiegogo platform. Born in Bristol TN/VA, she has been based in Seattle since 1998.
Here’s what the press have said about Beth Fleenor:
“Beth Fleenor transcends labels – a multi-talented, creative force in Seattle.” (City Arts Magazine)
“Crystal Beth creates her own sonic cult through stage thrashing her way through ‘cathartic hardcore purge pop,’ and wielding psychedelic clarinet melodies and bethnic chants.” (The Stranger )
“Crystal Beth – is an undeniable, unstoppable musical force, and one of Seattle’s treasures. She uses her voice and clarinet to channel strange, disturbing, and beautiful sounds into existence from beyond most of our imaginings. ….Beth’s chants and shrieks bypass the language centers of the brain and drill directly into the deepest, primal folds, beckoning you to surrender to sound, to find peace and clarity through a modicum of musical insanity.” (Ball of Wax)
“If you’re getting tired of music that’s even remotely formulaic, {Crystal Beth} is for you. Her experimental mixing of genres is powerful and refreshing.” (Seattle Weekly)
“…a supremely versatile and virtuosic maverick” (The Stranger)
“exceptional clarinetist” (Seattle Times)
“Crystal Beth & the Boom Boom Band are what happens when accomplished jazz musicians decide to take a reckless holiday in the rock realm…. a kind of artful, deranged rock that recalls the Dirty Three and the Geraldine Fibbers at their most agitated and, alternately, at their most lugubrious.” (The Stranger)
“one of the most fearless and innovative musicians in the city…” (Seattle’s Earshot Jazz)
“alternately buoyant and ponderous, transfixing and exceptional” (City Arts Magazine)
“….fare perhaps best described as world music from an imaginary planet….quite compelling and magical….” (Seattle Times)
AUDIENCE REFLECTIONS
“Some crazy combination of Bjork & Mike Patton, but with a voice truly her own.”
“Brian Eno meets the Beastie Boys in Mumbai and they have a spirited discussion about Alice Coltrane”
“Crystal Beth is what happens if you cross Frank Zappa, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, and Janice Joplin”
“Experimental primal scream punk meets world meets prog meets jazz meets the Dali Lama…and I’m not exaggerating…”.
The Akku Quintet was founded by drummer and composer Manuel Pasquinelli. Says renown writer Sid Smith, “Best-known for his work in Swiss post-rock minimalist outfit, SONAR, Pasquinelli’s writing contains an almost cinematic dimension that encompasses bittersweet moods and moments of unfolding drama.” The band is based in Switzerland, from where they dispense a minimalistic jazz groove to great effect.
Since their first concerts in 2011 the band gained more and more international attention (North-America tour in autumn 2018). Their debut album “Stages of Sleep” was released in May 2013 (Morpheus Records). The quintet then set the different phases of sleep to music. Following their acclaimed 2015 album “Molecules” Akku Quintet released their third record “Aeon” in 2017. In October 2018 the band toured Canada and USA.
Their fourth album “Depart” is the first to be released on Trey Gunn’s (King Crimson, Security Project) 7d Media label on May 17th.
Says Manuel, “We have chosen ‘Depart’ as the album title because it describes very good the general feeling/spirit of the album. I’d say compared to our previous albums, ‘Depart’ is more driving and expressive. I think one can hear a forward-moving undertone on all the tracks. The title track ‘Depart’ comes along in a courageous and at the same time doubting and mysterious mood, performed with lots of playfulness. ‘Depart’ was the best word to describe the mood of this track and the album in general.”
“The group connect and lock together yet remain constantly in motion, maintaining a balletic poise and grace that skilfully builds and adds line upon line of long, sonorous notes. Though each one on its own might be gossamer-thin, when combined, they create something strong and enduring, something substantial and memorable.” – Sid Smith
Akku Quintet’s new album still has a minimalistic touch, but you’ll hear more of the soloistic qualities of the group members. It’s a colourful, powerful album of a well attuned band. Recorded live in the studio April 16-19, 2018, the compositions were written by Manuel Pasquinelli.
Says Manuel, “We recorded the album within 4 days. All the songs were performed live in the studio, playing all together as a band. We rehearsed/developed the music in a short but intense rehearsal phase. At the weekend before the studio we played one concert with the new material. In the studio we were well prepared but the songs were still new for us. The music was finally shaped while playing as a group in the studio. I’ve written the music over a period of several months. Some sketches I already had long before, but there are also parts or songs that I’ve written just one or two weeks before the studio session.”
Line Up: Michael Gilsenan: Sax Maja Nydegger: Keys Markus Ischer: Guit Andi Schnellmann: Bass Manuel Pasquinelli: Drums
Manuel Pasquinelli is also known as drummer of the band Sonar which is currently collaborating with David Torn and Bill Laswell. Andi Schnellmann is regularly touring with Schnellertollermeier (Cuneiform Records). In support of the new release the Akku Quintet will have some album-release gigs in Europe in May and will be touring in Europe and Russia in autumn. The band also hopes to play North America again soon.
In closing Manuel has this to impart, “My goal is to impart a specific mood to the listener. Not a concrete story, but a mood and a progression with changing conditions/colors to dive in as a listener. And I hope one can listen a tune on the album several times and discover always new things in the song and look at it/listen to it with a different focus/perspective.”
Work directly with Trey Gunn on a weekly basis in this group course.
King Crimson guitar legend Trey Gunn is presenting “Intro to Modes”; an 8-week music course that runs from October 15 to December 8, 2018.
For all instrumentalists and singers.
In this course we will break down one of the basic building blocks of music – the modes – into digestible parts, both sonically and theoretically, so they can be used with ease.
This course will:
Help you to immediately find your ground in a piece of music
Give you flexibility when improvising
Give you greater color choices when developing your own compositions
Help you grasp command of the core material of music
Give you a long-term pathway to hear deeper into the relationships of the notes
This course is designed to work for all players:
Beginning players – We’ll start with the basics.
Intermediate players – Hone the fundamentals in your hearing for improved playing and writing
Advanced players – Find the gaps in your melodic hearing. Apply practices to close the gaps and take your playing further
Learn to play confidently while capturing the unique quality of each mode in your improvisations and compositions. This ease only comes from the deep exploration based on how you hear, in your own particular way. This course breaks down that exploration into its core essence, step-by-step.
– – –
When most musicians play by thinking in modes, or scales, they tend towards using all the tones equally and without their full meaning. This results in bland musical lines. Lines that come across like white light where, instead, there could be gorgeous color.
How a painter uses color is a useful analogy for working with the modes. Any musical idea can be tinted with one of the modes. The idea remains essentially the same; but the color of the music changes based on which mode you are using.
This course is designed to establish these “modal” differences in your ear so you can use them as you need to, much as a painter pulls from his or her palette of colors.
– – –
Learning about modes isn’t about the information. The information is easy. Learning this material, the way I think we should, is about getting to know each tone intimately within its context – the mode’s center of gravity, or tonal center.
This course will use a progression of practices to develop our sense of each note and how that note fits into its mode.
This is an oversimplification; but based on many years of practice, study and playing I have honed an approach to go directly into the sounds.
First, we learn the sounds. The information can come afterward, simply to help us organize.
– – –
This will be a type of correspondence course with info/practices being presented each week and all of us digesting it together via a Google Group. There is no real-time participation, so any time-zone or personal schedule will fit with our work together.
The course will adapt to the people participating and how things develop as we go along. But the general curriculum will be based on the following progression:
Week 1
General Concepts of Modes
Language And Method For The Course
Root, Fifth, Octave (+ listening/singing)
Week 2
Thirds (+ listening puzzles)
Week 3
Sevenths (+ extra singing)
Week 4
Sixths (+ playing)
Week 5
Seconds (+ composition)
Week 6
Fourths (+ audiation/memorization)
Week 7
Full Modes (+ pentatonics/hexatonics)
Week 8
Locrian/Pathway to Exotics (+wrap-up)
Cost: $299.00 50% discount for Early Registration before October 1, 2018
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