Anthony Coleman & Brian Chase
Arcades
Pianist and composer Anthony Coleman (John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Glenn Branca), teams up with drummer Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Drums and Drones) for their debut duo album, Arcades. These distinguished figures of the avant-garde craft a kaleidoscopic and expressionistic album from start to finish, hinged upon their synergistic interplay and technical dexterity. The music stands at a cross-section of post-jazz improvisation and contemporary classical ideals, emblematic of the ‘Downtown’ NYC scene of which Coleman and Chase are active participants. At the core of these “stark, compelling improvised duos” (The Wire, April 2022) is the musical dialogue between Coleman and Chase - a spontaneous exchange and counter-exchange resulting in an array of expressive moods and themes, from the euphoric to the introspective. The title 'Arcades' is a reference to philosopher Walter Benjamin's The Arcades Project, a labyrinthine text profiling 19th-century Parisian urban life, which consists largely of fragments of popular discourse, sociological observations and poetic personal insights.
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"Arcades" is a celebration of sound, of sound reacting to sound, and the cumulative effect of two musicians constantly upping the ante." - PopMatters
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Arcades LP, $20
Beautifully mastered for vinyl by renowned mastering engineer Scott Hull
Anthony Coleman - Piano
Brian Chase - Drumset
Album artwork: Sarah Klein & David Kwan, from the POLAR series (Yellow, Blue and Pink)
www.sarahklein.com & www.davidkwan.net
Recorded by Jeff Cook at 2nd Story Sound, NYC
Produced by Jeff Cook, Anthony Coleman and Brian Chase
Mixed by Jeff Cook; Mastered by Scott Hull
Thank you: Jeff Cook, Sarah Klein & David Kwan, Scott Hull, Kevin Bud Jones and Barry Chase
Photo by Jessica Hallock of NYC Noise
Pianist and composer Anthony Coleman has been one of the key figures of New York music for nearly four decades. His work bridges the gap between Composition and Improvisation, Uptown and Downtown, and spans a wide range of genres and practices including Free Improvisation, Jazz, Jewish music (of various types), and Contemporary Chamber Music. He has recorded 20 CDs under his own name and has played on more than 150. The first two records Coleman played on, Glenn Branca’s Lesson No. 1 and John Zorn’s Archery, have become classics of a then-emerging avant-garde. As a composer, Coleman’s works have been commissioned by the Concert Artist Guild, the Jerome Foundation, the Ruhrtriennale, the Festival Banlieues Blues, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars, among others. He has presented his own work at the Sarajevo Jazz Festival (Bosnia), North Sea Jazz Festival (Holland), Saalfelden Festival (Austria), and the Krakow and Vienna Jewish Culture Festivals. He has also toured and recorded with John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Marc Ribot, Shelley Hirsch, Roy Nathanson, and many others.
Brian Chase is the drummer for Grammy-nominated rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, NYC’s experimental music community and his solo project, Drums and Drones. Performing has taken him across the world to notable stages including the Sydney Opera House, London’s Royal Festival Hall and Japan’s Fuji Rock, as well as concert spaces ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to countless independent art spaces of music’s ‘underground’ communities. In 2007, Brian began Drums and Drones, a solo project which applies principles of harmonic resonance to drums and percussion; initial inspiration for the project comes from La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela’s legendary Dream House installation. Drums and Drones: Decade, a triple album with 144 page book (Chaikin Records), was released in 2018; the collection was described in The Wire as “luscious laboratory experiments in listening to stretched skins, wooden vessels and metallic surfaces.” As an educator, Brian was a visiting professor at Bennington College and guest lecturer at So Percussion’s Summer Institute at Princeton University. Essays and writings have appeared in John Zorn’s Arcana series, Modern Drummer magazine, and culture blog Talkhouse. In 2018, Brian started his record label, Chaikin Records, which focuses primarily on the NYC avant-garde arts community.
