Two new albums that I'm extremely proud to be a part of have been released recently!

Kirsten Carey's Ulysses Project was released last week at a successful release show at Kerrytown Concert House.
It can be bought/streamed through a few different avenues, but the best is her Bandcamp page:

The same night as Kirsten's release show in Ann Arbor, there was a concert at the Stoughton Opera House in WI celebrating the release of Dietrich Gosser's Oh to Begin! You can pre-order VINYL copies of this new album, and stream/buy it here:

The fantastic Madison-based label Mine All Mine Records, in collaboration with Grimmusik, is releasing a compilation this week of ambient and experimental music.  I've contributed a track, and it's an honor to be included.  The release features tracks from many stellar musicians, including Thollem McDonas,CJ Boyd, Brothers Grimm,Pat Reinholz, and many, many more. 

The album will be streamed live TOMORROW at MIDNIGHT on Gross Time.

There's an album release show on Friday night in Madison, that's going to be amazing.

In other news, Kirsten Carey has released the second of the four videos we shot from her Ulysses Project last month.  We spent three days in the studio this past weekend recording the entire album, and I'm excited to say that it's going to be totally kickass. 

If you haven't yet donated to her Kickstarter to ensure completion of the album and reserve your copy, DO IT!!!!

The stellar guitarist/composer Kirsten Carey has written a set of pieces based on James Joyce's monstrous novel, Ulysses.  I'm happy to be playing in the band for the project, which will be recording this coming weekend!

She will be releasing 4 videos that we recorded last month over the next 4 weeks.  Here is the first one:

The next 4 weeks is also the duration of her Kickstarter campaign to fund the making of the album.  I would encourage/implore anyone reading this to donate, because it sure is good to be a part of projects that actually have a chance of coming to fruition!  This is a really great set of free-jazz inflected tunes.

Check it out!

So this week I've become a little bit obsessed with playing a 140 year-old banjo through my 3 year-old computer. I'm working to develop an electroacoustic improvising platform that I can apply more broadly. It's still in its formative stages, but I'm pretty excited about it.

While I don't actually play banjo, exactly, I'm finding that using it in my explorations of developing a computer instrument is really useful. I plan to eventually use this interface for performing on bass, but removing that element and all of my precepts that go along with it have freed me to be more open to experimentation. 

Also, the banjo is smaller, which is nice sometimes.

Dietrich Gosser has released his new 7 inch, Somewhere in the Night/When Morning Comes this week!  We recorded these tracks last summer in his house, and it was a great time.  I'm really proud to be a part of these songs.  This also marks my first recorded work being pressed on vinyl, which is exciting for me.

Check out these songs on Bandcamp. (Listen for the distorted bass noise 'guitar solo' on When Morning Comes!)

It's my last week in Madison, WI before I head off towards elsewhere, and it's a pretty effective one. I just spent the last two days in the studio laying down tracks for Dietrich Gosser's new album project. His tunes are really fantastic, and playing with him and the great percussionist Dan Kuemmel on this project has been a blast. We've been playing as a trio at Mickey's Tavern throughout July in order to get used to playing together. Dietrich and Dan have a really great language with each other--as results from playing together for 13 years--so it was both fun and intimidating to jump into the mix. We layed down about 11 songs in 2 days. I'm really excited to hear what becomes of these recordings as they continue to develop them over the next few months. Jeremiah Nelson, another great musician and songwriter, is helping with production. We recorded at DNA Music Labs in Madison, a studio that I hadn't worked with before, and working with Brian Daly was a great experience.

The next thing on my docket this week is our Watercourse Quartet show with Thollem McDonas tomorrow. Seeing Thollem play when he came through Madison this spring was incredible, so sharing the bill with him this time around is a superlative honor.

My final show/going away party is on Saturday at the Project Lodge with Lovely Socialite. The Project Lodge is a fitting venue for my departure. I've certainly performed there more than anywhere over the last couple of years, and the future of the venue this fall is just as unsure as my own. My good friend Tom Teslik is also playing his last show before leaving town for a few months on tour, so it's even more cause to celebrate. We'll also be joined by the talented electronic artist Chants.


Oh yeah! And the new Bell Monks album is out TODAY! I'll be at the Dragonfly Lounge tonight for their release party! (You can hear me playing some bass on a few tracks...)

Not sure when I'm going to pack.

Glacier has just released our first album, MONOLITHIC. We've been sitting on these recordings for a long time--actually, it's the recording of our very first performance, from May of last year--and have just now decided to release them. We feel that we've continued to develop as a band, but we're still proud of these recordings and want to share them with you people. Plus, we have whole pile of recordings we've made since, so we needed to get these out there so we can start working on the next thing.

A nice video was taken at our release show on Saturday:

Available online now! Free download. 

A limited number of physical copies will be available soon, also.

Lovely Socialite Mrs. Thomas W. Phipps: Registers Her Delight is available for purchase now through Mine All Mine's shop.

You can also stream the whole album for a limited time! Check it out!

In other news, I'm busy being back on the road with Anna Vogelzang. Headed out east this time. Check her dates here.

It has been a busy couple of weeks for Lovely Socialite Mrs. Thomas W. Phipps. We've finished printing our new album, Registers Her Delight--which we could afford to do because of our successful Kickstarter campaign. We had an album release show on Friday night, which was really awesome. Over 100 people attended, which was quite a feat in the cozy Dragonfly Lounge.

Scott Gordon of The Isthmus did a nice piece on us that appeared in last week's paper.

Registers Her Delight will be available on Tuesday through Mine All Mine Records. Until then, here's our single, Brachiosaurus Boogie (For Kids!), which features a B-side of an alternate take of Rock It, Science.