Recorded March 5-6, 2009 in Brooklyn, NY.
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Stephen Griesgraber.
GYAN RILEY - GUITAR
Gyan Riley is a classical guitarist and composer from Northern California. While studying as the first full-scholarship guitar student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he received a recording contract for his debut CD of original works, Food for the Bearded, released in 2002 on New Albion Records. He has since expanded his career as a composer and instrumentalist, receiving commissions from the Carnegie Hall Corporation, the New York Guitar Festival, the Paul Dresher Ensemble and the Elaine Kaufman Cultural Center. Riley has performed in ten European countries and across the U.S., both as a soloist and in ensemble with various artists such as Zakir Hussain, Michael Manring, Dawn Upshaw, the San Francisco Symphony, the Falla Guitar Trio, the World Guitar Ensemble and his father, the composer/pianist/vocalist Terry Riley.
TIMB HARRIS - VIOLIN/VIOLA
Violinist/violist and trumpet player Timb Harris' professional musical interests span from contemporary chamber music to grinding death metal. He records and tours internationally with the bands Estradasphere and Secret Chiefs 3. As a performer and recording artist, he has worked throughout the United States and internationally with many of today's leading 'new music' artists (William Winant, Joan Jeanrenaud (Kronos Quartet], Carla Khilstedt, Fred Frith, Alvin Curran, Chris Brown, Eyvind Kang). His performances can be found in the catalogues of Tzadik Records, Mimicry Records, the End Records, Warner Bros., and more.
CHES SMITH - PERCUSSION
Ches Smith has established himself as one of the most in-demand percussionists on the New York cutting edge music scene today. Equally at home in avant- jazz, experimental rock, and contemporary classical settings, he possesses a dynamic mastery of the drum set, various hand percussion instruments, and the vibraphone. Also a composer, Ches writes and performs in a wide variety of contexts, including solo percussion, experimental rock bands, and small and large jazz ensembles. He has performed with Good For Cows, Marc Ribot, Secret Chiefs 3, Xiu Xiu, Trevor Dunn's Trio-Convulsant, Carla Bozulich, Beat Circus, Sean Hayes, Ben Goldberg, 7 Year Rabbit Cycle, Ara Anderson and Fred Frith. He has also recorded and performed a full-length album of his own solo percussion pieces entitled Congs For Brums (2006).
"There's no way to pigeonhole the music of guitarist Gyan Riley and his trio. His music has a beauty all its own."
- San Francisco Examiner
"Yes, Gyan Riley's compositions tip their cap to Jazz, direct a friendly nod toward Flamenco by way of Africa and extend a hearty handshake to the Indian traditions, but rather than being a superficial search for novelty, they bear witness to a restless imagination and dedication to an art inherited not just from his composer father, Terry, but from those folk traditions nurtured by a longstanding heritage of sincerity, spirit and devotion.
It is of course a reflection of the continuing mockery music makes of the limits of language that we grasp like drowning men to driftwood for the nearest simile or tortured metaphor on which to hang the music that pours from these musicians. It is with this in mind that we scribes should lay down our pens and declare 'enough'. Enough talk, enough words, let these wonderful musicians take you where these impoverished words cannot tread."
- Rob Casey (The Journal of Music, Ireland)
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