Racer Session #351 | WAH Record Release | November 20, 2016
Hello fans of the avant!
We're thrilled to announce that our local creative heroes WAH (Simon Henneman and Gregg Keplinger) will release their new album Travellers Station this Sunday at the Racer Sessions. WAH released their first record on Table and Chairs music a few years ago, and since that time have worked tirelessly to collaborate with Seattle artists from many backgrounds. Keeping true to this aesthetic, WAH will use Racer Sessions performers to interpret their album this week! We've never heard of an album release performance quite like this--only at Racer folks. Be sure to join us from 8-10pm this Sunday, November 20th at the Racer Sessions!
A few words from WAH about their album, and the collaborative performance to take place at Racer.
Assophon present Travellers Station, the second album from WAH, the collaborative effort led by guitarist Simon Henneman (Diminished Men) and drummer Gregg Keplinger (master drummer and Charles Gocher's doppelganger). WAH have created a modern masterpiece of modal, spiritual and free expression. Coming off like a late, classic RVG session for Impulse, Travellers Station is snarled with the force of a pummeling rock band by two artful leaders of Seattle's underground jazz scene. Travellers Station boasts ten musicians including bassists Luke Bergman and Carmen Rothwell, vibraphonists Bob Rees and Jacques Willis, horn players Ray Larson and Neil Welch, vocalist Katie Jacobson, and percussionist and co-producer Dave Abramson. The breathtaking energy of WAH's legendary NW performances is captured here with razor sharp production that finds room for fiery free jazz, psychedelic drone, big belting rhythms, and cosmic anthems. Fans of the classic era of '68-'78 (Strata-East/Human Arts/Sonny Sharrock/private/spiritual/BYG/loft) jazz scenes in America and France will dig immensely.
http://www.wahband.com/
While making this record we used various combinations of written parts, free improvisation, and improviational strategies. For the session we'd like to try out some of the strategies we used while making the record:
1. Singing meditation ( from Pauline Oliveros via Kate Olson): Listen, inhale, sing a sustained pitch, repeat.
2. Play a trill on your instrument, pause, repeat.
3. Pretend you are learning the part the person to the left of you is playing.
I'd like to invite y'all to make up some ofyour own strategies as well.
