You may have noticed that nifty download store picture/link in the upper right, and some of you might have already even clicked on it. If you haven’t already go ahead and check it out, and possibly buy some albums. They’re all super high quality, and darn good if I do say so myself. There’s a lot of content, I’m in the process of uploading the 10th album right now.
Also, some time soon I am going to be transferring all the old Shulaka tapes from 1995 – 1999 and posting them as well.
People from all over the world are loving Sessions 2011!
Read the full reviews and download Sessions 2011 by The Children of Mu for FREE here!
On this beautiful Christmas Eve I am writing you to announce the release of a project that I am incredibly proud of, The Children of Mu – Sessions 2011.
The Children of Mu is a Fusion Improv project I put together with some of the best and most creative musicians in the area. Think electric period Miles Davis mixed with Faust and Sun Ra. I had A LOT of fun playing drums on this, and finally for those of you who know me most for my drumming have full 3 hours worth of it here. You can click the image on the left to download the MP3 version for free or donate if you like, or you can get the flac or just about any other file version in my brand new DOWNLOAD STORE and see the complete session notes and credits.
Music video for Lavender Tarantula off of my latest album “Coruja” I hope you enjoy it. Download the full album for free herehttp://www.jamendo.com/en/album/95031 or buy it on Amazon.
Made with iMovie 3 on my Apple Power Macintosh G4 using public domain footage from Archive.org and my flip video camera. Additional video camera work by Cristiane Nunes Silva Wierbonski.
This was just recorded last Sunday 8.20.11 at my home studio. This is a Children of Mu rendition of my composition “22nd Ave S” which was first released on Coruja. This version features me on Drums, Rex Shepherd on Guitar, Jeremy Powell on Sax, and K Paul Boyev on Bass. This is a stripped down Mu lineup, but I think that it came out really well.
This is a song by my old friend Derrick Hart. I played drums and synthesizer. It was written, sang, guitar-ed and produced by Derrick Hart, with other music by Kirill Nikolai, Stacy Price, Peter Glenn and an absolutely awesome video by Matthew Fish Derrick has recently been touring like a mad man and released a new album that is VERY worth checking out.
Get more Derrick Hart at Wreckingball Wreckords
This is the first recording released under my real name. I’m not sure why I decided to use this one, but maybe it was because I feel like this particular EP basically came straight from a particular stressful week at work which I translated directly and frantic and chaotic music, hints it’s title “Work”
The instrumentation is only drums and synth, with recorder on one track. The synth used was a Yamaha TX81z. Every track was started with the drums and then I went back and improvised all the other tracks afterwards. Basically solo improvisation.
The patches I created on the synth were trying to emulate free jazz sax, horn electric piano and bass tones. Obviously since the TX81z is a 4 operator FM synth, realism was NOT my goal, but rather to create somewhat strange and warped versions of these instruments.
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Enjoy.
After the demise of Dafrebos, which was at the same time very sad and angering, I wasn’t about to sit by and let all of the momentum die off from the many hours spent recording and working on something. Though the songs we recorded were never finished and what was almost finished was disappointing to say the least the details of Dafrebos’ fall from grace is a whole other blog post.
As soon as the word was official that we were calling it quits, I went to work in putting together, or re-putting together an idea I had back in 2008- The Children of Mu.
In the summer of 08 I put together a variety of musicians from the usual channels, world of mouth, craigslist et cetera.. with the vision of creating an ensemble of musicians who could play along with me in creating something somewhat akin to late 60s, early 70s Miles Davis aka Bitches Brew era.
My reasoning for this was not to copy what miles was doing at that time, but to look into this concept and try to expand and explore it more. Now, I know what most people would say here is that it has already been done and it is called “fusion”. Well, I would have to disagree.
What Miles was doing on albums like Bitches Brew, Live Evil, Dark Magus to my ears sounds wholly different to what became known as fusion. The other bands besides Miles who were being classified in that genre became synonymous with ultra extended wanking guitar solos, giant monster triple bass drum drum sets, keytars, and mullet sporting Berklee graduates whose idea of music is trying to fit as many notes into a single measure that is humanly possible.
Miles, and possibly very early Weather Report (who happened to share some Bitches Brew alumni) were doing something not like this at all. It was hard to describe. It was rhythmic, dark, intelligent, spontaneous, primal and very very moody. I feel that this sound actually fell through the cracks when Miles went into temporary retirement in 74, and when he came back was no longer doing it, and neither was anybody else.
So in 2008 I put together a group of guys and played one gig at Cafe Bohemia here in St. Pete to some success. The crowd was very responsive and liked what we did a lot. And over all I think there were good moments, but could have been better. Not everybody who was involved at that time seemed to really be on board with what was going on, and some weren’t really able to push the boundaries or connect in the way that I would have liked. There’s a lot of grooves where the bass just falls apart early or doesn’t keep up for long enough. There were some listening issues at times and some weird vibes too, so I didn’t pursue it much after that one gig.
Dafrebos took front burner for a time as well as the recording of my last solo album, Coruja. I finished Coruja and Defrebos fizzled out, so I started rethinking the Mu project. Gonzalo, who played percussion with me in Dafrebos, and I had developed a very good connection in the past couple years and I knew I wanted him involved. Jeremy Powell, who was in the first Mu lineup on sax, and who had collaborated with me on several other projects was one of my first choices as well.
One of the hardest things to find in this area is a good bass player. But I finally located one who understands the concept, as well as has technical skills and ability to improvise in Adam Deimling. Ironically he was the Bassist for Mants, who was Josh and Alan from Dafrebos’ old band.
So in the recent months I’ve been inviting people over to the Anthill in varied groups and recording improvisational sessions with some amazing results. I’ve been sticking purely to drums in these sessions. Adam Deimling on bass and Gonzalo Ovelar on percussion have been involved in the majority of these sessions as well.
There has been a very talented rotating cast that includes Jeremy Powell, K Paul Boyev & James Bess (of insect joy), Kevin Wilder, Rex Shepherd and others. There’s also been talk with older band mates from Lincoln, The Fun and The Boom possibly making it down to partake in some of these sessions.
Some of the most recent recordings are meeting and even exceeding my expectations and are some of the best improvisational recordings I think I’ve produced to date.
So what now? The new Children of Mu recordings are going to be scrutinized by me over the summer as I compile them together into an album’s worth, or possibly double album’s worth of material to be released this fall. We may even play gigs if the right opportunity presents itself.
Check out the original Children of Mu show live audio recording from 2008 below. Despite it’s shortcomings, there are still some really good moments.
Justin Wierbonski – Drums, Jeremy Powell – Sax, John Richardson – Keys, Rick Adams – Bass, Ivan Ftorek – Percussion
Be sure to go check out my new album “Coruja” available for purchase on Amazon, iTunes, eMusic etc… I worked really hard on this one, and it is definitely a percussion lover’s album. Later an actual CD will be available as well. Since Amazon doesn’t allow back covers, you can download it here or at least look at it to see the notes.
A partial list of equipment used: Custom made 6 piece drum kit with concert toms, surdo, caixa, agogo, repinique, tamborim, cuica, Paiste cymbals, tan tan, pandeiro, 6″ Chinese gong, wood block, Kawai K1 II synthesizer, Casio CZ-3000 synthesizer, Yamaha TX81Z Synthesizer, Korg MS-2000 Synthesizer, acoustic guitar, floppy drive, Pro Tools Free for OS9, Cubase SX, Cubase SE, Audacity, Ecasound, Sure SM57, Behringer C-2, OHS OM450, Tascam M-164, and a buch of other stuff I’m forgetting about.
Or download it for free here!
Coruja by Justin Robert is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://justinrobert.wordpress.com.
This is definitely the most avantgarde and one of the most twisted abstract recordings I have ever taken part in.
This was one of my bands when I was living in South Florida/Miami from 1996 to 2000 and was the last recording I made before I left.
Anti-Pope actually started out as just being called “Pope” and we were a two piece band consisting of myself on drums and Dan Hosker (Holy Terrors, Harry Pussy) on guitar. We played several very intense improvised shows in the somewhat hostile Miami music scene of the late 90s accumulating Henry Rajan on bass and Gerard Klauder on electronics and basically causing chaos wherever we went.
The music scene in the late 90s of Miami was an interesting and somewhat hostile, scary place. There were a lot of unpredictable people going anywhere from somewhat, to very insane at any given moment. I’m not talking about every now and then having a little too much to drink, I’m talking about true psychopathic and outright dangerous behavior. You never knew what was going to happen. Tables could fly, There was riotous drunken behavior that often erupted in to violent frenzies, and unfortunately Gerard was often at the center of these frenzies, or at least partially responsible for them getting started. However, I cannot profess innocence at all in this period either.
We recorded this album at Gerard’s house in January of 2000. Dan and Henry and I improvised all day and Gerard recorded it. Then he cut it to a million pieces and put together a pretty incredible album from it a few months later.
This is still one of the craziest sounding albums I’ve ever been on and really think it holds up rather well.
Gerard ended up taking his own life a few years ago, and despite he crazy episodes, really deep down was a good hearted person. Rest in peace old crazy friend.
Download the zip here, or stream below.
Recorded in January of 2000 by Gerard Klauder in Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Drums, keyboards, alto saxophone, salad bowl – Justin Wierbonski
Guitars, keyboards, rattling wrenches, sticks, beer cans and keys – Dan Hosker
Upright and 5 string bass, banging and clarinet – Henry Rajan
Mixing, cuts and production by Gerard Klauder.
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FD-7 Photos
