Album Notes

Wolff began as a solo project for Brian Wolff, the innovative tuba player of Drums and Tuba fame. This new release, "The Brass Ceiling" introduces Steve Garofano (also of Triple Delight and Vic Thrill) on drums. The result is a swirling mix of the live and the looped, the textural and the propulsive.
The songs on "The Brass Ceiling" are created live through the use of Brian Wolff's unique 'electro-tuba' apparatus which involves a battle-scarred tuba wired into samplers and effects boxes so that rhythm loops are created by tapping on the tuba, basslines and melodies are played then captured and vocal parts are sung into the mouthpiece. The result is powerful, soaring and sometimes eerie as layered compositions are built by the accumulation of loops.
Though Steve Garofano plays old-fashioned, low-tech drums, he shares a strong, syncopated rhythmic sensibility with Brian. The drums move from pounding four-on-the-floor to snaking patterns that dart in and out of the dense growl of tuba basslines.
The music of Wolff is at the same time unusual in its fusion of the electronic and the acoustic and immediately approachable in groove and melody. The sonic palette is rich and textural and the rhythms will kick you in the pants. If you can't make it to the Lower East Side of Manhattan for one of Wolff's enthralling live shows, snap up "The Brass Ceiling". You won't regret it.