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Playfield has never played inside. Daniel Carter, a multi-instrumentalist and the founder of 577 Records, has always pushed to make sound more real, relying on outdoor performance and New York City’s auditory ambience, to orchestrate his pieces. This practice, which is fundamentally improvisational and experimental, opens any final recording to the unpredictable nature of strangers’ sound and offers a rich texture of a moment in time. Importantly for the artists, this practice draws on the energy of one’s external environment: conversations, car horns, bird songs, and far away, even other music. That changed with Stepping Out, the group’s first recording in the comparatively sterile environment of a studio. Alongside Carter, Luisa Muhr (Voice), Ayumi Ishito (Tenor Sax and Electronics), Eric Plaks (Piano and Rhodes), Aron Namenwirth (Guitar and Electronics), Yutaka Takahashi (Guitar and Electronics), Zachary Swanson (Bass), Jon Panikkar (Drums) packed into a Brooklyn recording studio. As the environment shrank from open streets to an enclosed room, the artists were compelled to make field recordings of cicadas or ice-cream trucks, and include heavy new effects to transition between improvisations. Producers Jon Rosenberg and Aron Namenwirth borrowed mixing techniques from the pop and cinema world to bring jazz into the 21st century without resorting to commercial beats or a famous feature singer. The result is creative, expansive, and intently real. Stepping Out will be available on CD in October 2022.
credits
released October 21, 2022
Daniel Carter: Tenor Sax, Alto sax, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Flute, Trumpet
Luisa Muhr: Voice
Ayumi Ishito: Tenor Sax and Electronics
Eric Plaks: Piano and Rhodes
Aron Namenwirth: Guitar and Electronics
Yutaka Takahashi: Guitar and Electronics
Zachary Swanson: Bass
Jon Panikkar: Drums
Recorded June 16, 2021 by Jon Rosenberg at The Bunker, Brooklyn
Assistant Engineer: Alex Conroy
Mixed & Mastered by Jon Rosenberg
Produced by Hall Of Mirrors (Aron Namenwirth & Jon Rosenberg)
Painting by Aron Namenwirth
Graphic design by Sergio Vezzali
Graphic files preparation by Mark Smith
All music by Playfield (Five Seven Seven Records Music, ASCAP)
577 Records is an independent record label
based in Brooklyn, New York
operating since 2001
One of the legendary masters of creative music. Daniel Carter has recorded or performed with William Parker, Federico Ughi,
DJ Logic, Thurston Moore, Yo La Tengo, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Sonic Youth, Sam Rivers, Yoko Ono, Living Colour, Medesky Martin and Wood and Jaco Pastorius among others. He is a member of the cooperative free jazz groups TEST and Other Dimensions In Music....more
This record really hits that sweet spot of calm stimulation. Lush, fat, rolling synths form the foundation for controlled but passionate and thoughtful playing and listening from everyone. Meditative and energetic...and always bad-ass. ps0m