Friday, June 23, 2017

Rob Burke / George Lewis / Paul Grabowsky / Mark Helisa - Shift (2017)


Released June 20, 2017 

The music on this CD is the result of four musicians with a background in jazz coming together to experiment and create music without the need for critical approval either from institutional oversight or industry-enforced norms and prerequisites. And because each is free to express himself as a collaborating individual without genre-based limitation, the music they create is ‘free’ music. As well as the analogue instruments, the music has input from the shapeshifted voice of the Ableton controller, a machine operated by George Lewis that records phrases and snippets of music in situ, digitally alters them and feeds them back into the music-making process, providing the musicians with another cue to which they can react.

The music, as all music does, starts with an idea and the enthusiasm of the players to chase it, to play with it as well as to play it, to use their expertise and experience to de- and re-construct it, to improvise around it and eventually to reconcile it in a synthesis that satisfies them and gives the willing listener a new and exciting aural experience. This is music that liberates. -Andrys Onsman


01. Shift 5:54 Quartet 
02. Move 8:16 Quartet 
03. Carry 6:19 RB, GL, 
04. Transfer 6:11 GL, MH 
05. Transport 5:10 RB, GL, PG 
06. Convey 6:01 RB, GL, PG 
07. Relocate 9:01 GL, PG 
08. Displace 4:15 RB, MH 
09. Rearrange 4:30 Quartet 
10. Reposition 5:15 Quartet 
11. Modify 5:57 PG, MH 

George Lewis – Trombone and Electronics 
Paul Grabowsky – Piano and Snare Drum 
Mark Helias – Acoustic Bass 

Recorded 26th July 2014 
Eastside Sound Recording Studio – Lower Eastside – New York USA
Engineered: Marc Urselli 
Mixed: April 14 2016, Mastered: Dec 2016 by Andrea Benassai 
Sonoria Recording Plant, Prato Italy. 
Produced by Robert Burke 
Art work by Atia Cader 
Special Thanks to: the musicians, Atia Cader, Yasmin Burke, Hanna Burke, Amali Burke – for inspiration and patience. To Monash University and the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music for the ‘research support’, Andrea Benassai for his tireless work and to Andrys Onsman for the wonderful discussions about what this all means. 

©Robert Burke 2017