Album Notes

WATIV, or William A. Thompson, IV, is an introverted musician, whose National Guard unit was activated on April, 27 2004. Upon deployment, and with permission from his higher-ups, Will took with him to Iraq a power book G4 and all necessary music production software. With MIDI, environmental samples, and imagination Will has begun and continues to compose music reflecting his experiences in this war. WATIV is Will’s transmission from Baghdad, his way of communicating his experience of war across the world. The result being the release of Baghdad Music Journal, the CD which makes this historic project assessable.

Now back in New Orleans, La, WATIV has generated a huge stir in the music industry as well as the political world. Together with Matthew Golimbisky on bass, and Milton Villarrubia on drums, WATIV trio will be reunited for their first tour since the devastating separation of hurricane Katrina.

In October of 2005 Will was featured in piece written for National Public Radio. Jazz journalist
Howard Mandel presented this piece for “All Things Considered”. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4856428
Excerpts follow :

“ He uses static as a rhythm instrument and incorporates eerie ambiances, like the whirring of an air conditioner, overheard conversation or random bits of shortwave radio. He says he adapted quickly to this new technology, but Thompson is less about the medium than about he moods he tries to capture, which he says come spontaneously”
-Howard Mandel (critic and president of the Jazz Journalists Association)

“He's taken advantage of the fact that he's there as an artist, which is what I did not do when I was in Vietnam. There’s a lot of introvertedness, where you're just thinking about what's going to happen or what already happened. And then I heard words in the background. And I'm not sure if I heard the word `Iraq,' and it sounded like I did, and I thought that was effective, very effective.” -Mr. BILLY BANG (Jazz Violinist)

“A composer and musician with a vision, under very difficult circumstances. A record that deserves our respect and appreciation.”
-Vital Weekly http://www.vitalweekly.net/512.html

In the autumn WATIV will be featured in a BBC radio documentary.
http://www.fallingtree.co.uk/inprod.htm

Signal to Noise magazine feature
http://www.signaltonoisemagazine.org/page4.html

All About Jazz
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/contrib.php?id=2873