Legendary NYC composers, band leaders, multi-instrumentalists and long time collaborators Jonathan Kane and Dave Soldier join forces with two of their most enduring projects—the trance-blues ecstatic minimalism of Jonathan Kane’s February, and the groundbreaking experimental string quartet innovations of Soldier String Quartet. With collective experience that include Swans, La Monte Young and Rhys Chatham for Kane, and John Cale, Bo Diddley and Kurt Vonnegut for Soldier, this pair has got stories.
February Meets Soldier String Quartet weds overtone-drenched drones with Delta and Chicago blues, trance, minimalism, jazz, no-wave, Haydn, and the great American songbook. It’s music that reconciles hypnosis with the physicality of a sweat-drenched juke joint. These are sounds for dancing, meditating, having sex, or banging your head against the wall.
Jonathan Kane is a downtown NYC legend, as co-founder of the no-wave behemoth Swans, and the rhythmic thunder behind the massed-guitar armies of Rhys Chatham and the three-hour blues excursions of minimalist godfather La Monte Young—and as one of the hardest-hitting drummers on the planet. His critically acclaimed trance-blues releases February, I Looked At The Sun and Jet Ear Party, power guitar-driven minimalism into the blues, and the blues into guitar-driven harmonic maximalism. His live band Jonathan Kane’s February has performed internationally to kinetically charged audiences. Kane has also worked with The Kropotkins, Transmission, Circus Mort, John Zorn, Gary Lucas, The Kane Bros. Blues Band and Jean-Francois Pauvros. He appears on over 75 records.
Dave Soldier’s many projects include the Thai Elephant Orchestra consisting of 14 elephants in northern Thailand, the cult Delta punk band the Kropotkins, The People’s Choice (The World’s Most Unwanted Music), the Soldier String Quartet, the Brainwave Music Project, and coaching children to compose their own music in Harlem, Brooklyn, and Guatemala. He has performed as violinist, guitarist, and composer/arranger with Bo Diddley, John Cale, Kurt Vonnegut, David Byrne and others, appearing on over 100 records, including 20 featuring his compositions for classical and jazz musicians. Soldier, as Dr. David Sulzer is also a professor at Columbia University Medical Center in the Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Pharmacology. His book Music, Math and Mind on the physics and neuroscience of music will be published in February by Columbia Press.
1. Hate To See You Go. 9:16. Walter Jacobs – Arc Music/BMI
Little Walter’s Chicago blues classic becomes a full on trance-blues dance floor workout.
The relentless riffs begin and never let up, blooming in full force with a luscious orchestral string section and a slashing Albert Ayler-inspired violin solo.
2. It Was A Very Good Year. 8:06. Ervin Drake – ASCAP
Popularized by Frank Sinatra, this staple of the great American songbook takes the listener on an instrumental journey through a life as seen through the lens of two NYC Downtown Music practitioners.
3. Requiem for Hulis Pulis. 16:09. Jonathan Kane – Mythco Music/BMI
A long form trance-blues voyage that takes minimalism to the crossroads where John Lee Hooker, Gavin Bryars, Muddy Waters, Steve Reich and Shostakovich come together to discuss what’s for dinner.
4. Vienna Over The Hills. 11:15. Dave Soldier – Rigglius Musc/ASCA
A gauzy dream-cum-nightmare of the worlds of Mozart, the Pastorale symphony, Mahler, Fritz Kreisler, Arnold Schoenberg, Klimt, Anna Freud and the Vienna Woods after it tore itself limb from limb.
Jonathan Kane – Drums, Guitars, Bass
Dave Soldier – Strings
