by Kevin Richards

The track titles are taken from a descriptive piece I was writing on my acoustic grind duo, Ettrick. I excerpted phrases that seemed like track titles, and Jacob Lindsay applied them to the tracks on Idea of West. They seem very fitting. The working methods, and end results, of Ettrick and Dryer/Heule/Lindsay are very different, but these phrases express the more fundamental similarities, mostly regarding the psychology of improvisation, the physics of sound production, and their relationship.

If my music is political, it is only coincidentally so. I am interested in expressions of texture, timbre, space, stasis, simplicity, directness, clarity, physicality, intensity, mythology, tenacity, control, restraint, taste.

"Idea of West" was suggested as a title for an already finished album by Jacob Lindsay, and quickly accepted by myself and Tony Dryer. The title reflects our interest in frontiers and open spaces, as embodied by the ideas of the American West and the Pacific Ocean. Of course we live in the San Francisco Bay Area, so the reality of these spaces is our home. This album is a North American West Coast take on a music largely developed in Europe. It's also interesting how we're united with the Far East in a pan-Pacific culture.

Physicality is extremely important to me. It is no mistake that I play the most physically-involving instrument, often in an excessively physical way. The drum set is quite large and expansive, involves the totality of the body operating in accord, and produces sound in a very crude and direct way.

My music is firmly rooted in this simplistically physical means of sound production. With intention and intensity, I employ diverse techniques to activate the sonic potential of basic physical objects, usually drums and cymbals. The primary content of my music arises from this heightened awareness of the physical means of sound production. The material is the music.

The act of sound production is extremely important, as is its directness and intensity. Thus, an intense physical presence naturally accompanies.

There is also, of course, a performative/mystical element to an extreme physical presence, which fits into the continuum of mosh pits and butoh.

Incidentally, though I sometimes use "free jazz" as an excessively accessible way to describe my music, I don't consider myself a jazz musician at all. The instrumentation and methodology of most of my projects correspond to the "free jazz" paradigm, but that's about the extent of it. My background is in rock and noise, and my present is something clearly very different.

In an improvisational musical sphere, skills are modular. There are rarely any tunes to learn, so all that's important is playing with like-minded people. If a free improviser practices their ass off alone or with one particular group, they have no problem applying these skills in novel musical situations and configurations. I am fortunate to live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has probably the most vibrant music scene in America (obscured from the world by geographic isolation), so there is no shortage of excellent, serious musicians with which to collaborate. That said, I actually do rehearse with fixed groups constantly. Most of my current musical activity is with double bassist Tony Dryer. Our duo project, Basshaters, is planning two western US tours for the first half of 2009, and working on finishing a couple albums we have recorded. We also function as some sort of "rhythm section" for a number of different quartets and trios, some ad hoc and some rehearsing. Dryer/Heule/Lindsay is the most rehearsed and longest-running of these groups. We all write compositions for the trio, and of course have this nice CD out on Creative Sources. I also play a whole lot with koto player Kanoko Nishi, and guitarist Ava Mendoza. My most distant regular collaborators are Guro Skumsnes Moe and Håvard Skaset, a double bass and guitar team from Oslo, with whom I have played and recorded in the Bay/Oslo Mirror Trio on two continents. They will be touring with Basshaters this spring with their trio, Peninsula Project.