Album Notes

hi i'm matt, a solo saxophonist living in cincinnati, ohio.

quite a few people have asked me why i play solo rather than in a band, and my reason(s) is that in playing alone, the beauty, simplicity, and freedom are just too good to pass up (i believe chris mccandless also said this of his solitary wanderings in the american west). to me, solo playing is the root of simplicity and in my experience i've found that all things are as they should be when they are kept uncomplicated and simple.

while difficult to categorize, my solo music is more or less an ambient, open, and free kind of music that relies heavily on long tones and folk-like melodies.

the music i play is heavily influenced by the great open spaces, places of desolation, deserts, sky, and wind-swept plains. to achieve my feelings associated with those places i use a more broad, open sound and modern saxophone techniques like key clicks, breath effects, 1/4 tones, and multiphonics to help create distance and echoes in the music.

"sojourner" is the first in what i expect to be a series of very quiet and very ambient recordings. groups like hammock and sigur ros have had such a profound impact on my music that i suspect i will continue further down the road of the quiet and ambient, while pushing the envelope in regards to how subtle, dark, and textured i can make the music.

while recording "sojourner" i discovered for the first time that there are very subtle and haunting textures in the muted tones of the saxophone. there is something very dark and hidden within those sounds that is really beginning to pull me in that direction.

thanks for reading and thank you so much more for listening!

MB