Dielectric Minimalist All-Stars

OAKLAND, CA –– This is not your professor’s minimalism. The new double CD from the Dielectric Minimalist All-Stars offers new interpretations of this often-academic genre, seeking to inject it with liberal doses of heaviness and electronic noise.

Entitled [i!], the Minimalist All-Stars disc is the creation of a variety of musicians and composers grouped together under the All-Star moniker. This recording was built around a core trio, consisting of sound artist Loren Chasse, free jazz drummer Jason Levis and experimental turntablist Die Elektrischen. The raw tracks, recorded in a state-of-the-art studio, were then either arranged and mixed by Die Elektrischen (disc one) or passed on to six outside producers (disc two), whose work ranges from indie electronica (Chris Palmatier, Carson Day) to breakcore (Sote) to noise (Gerritt).

Musically, the result is a new approach to minimalism that takes full advantage of the latest technologies. “We stuck to the basic foundation established by Steve Reich, Terry Riley and Philip Glass, but tried to introduce a variety of different sounds and studio techniques as well as taking liberties with formal minimalist rules,” said Die Elektrischen (aka Drew Webster).

Building on the success of the 2003 release, the Dielectric Drone All-Stars, the Minimalist All-Stars followed a similar formula. The recording trio were musical strangers when they went into the studio and were thus faced with the dual challenge of playing both minimalist and improvisational music.

“I knew Jason and Loren from playing around the Bay Area and thought they would be perfectly suited for this project,” says Webster. “In fact, knowing their work as musicians was sort of the genesis, their talent inspired me to create an interesting and fertile environment for them to create in.”

Chasse is a sound artist and is well-known for his work in Thuja, The Blithe Sons, Franciscan Hobbies, Id Battery and other groups as well as for his Jewelled Antler collective and record label. He likened the session, with its many microphone stands, to one of his nature recordings. “It was fun to record in [the Minimalist] forest, there were a lot of interesting sounds to be found there,” he said.

Levis has gigged extensively in the Bay Area as a drummer with Married Couple, Noertker’s Moxie and other jazz and improv groups. He is also a graduate student studying Music Composition at UC Berkeley. “We began with the small and quiet sounds,” explained Levis. “ The microphones were so sensitive that every movement of our bodies, our breathing even, had to be incorporated into the improvisation. The feeling was ‘life is sound.’ Our simply being alive created sound and our intentions in sound created life. We followed these sounds well past the end of the tape, a shame to stop at all. The challenge we all have now is to remember to listen closely. Creation is singing in each moment.”

The Minimalist All-Stars 2CD is available on Dielectric Records (DIE-009). Sound samples and more info can be found at dielectricrecords.com. The Dielectric Drone All-Stars 2CD (DIE-006) is available at the web site as well. The final CD of the trilogy, the Dielectric Field Recording All-Stars will be released in 2005.