Release Date: 24 June 2022
Label: Whirlwind Recordings
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 0655498297984
Genres: Jazz Contemporary
Release Date: 11 August 2023
Label: Whirlwind Recordings
Packaging Type: Slip Sleeve (CD or Vinyl)
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 0655498297991
Genres: Jazz Contemporary
Description
'We're All Improvisers Now' is the debut solo album by New York/Montreal-based performer Tommy Crane, a tranquil, introspective journey through boundary-traversing ambient jazz, buoyed by the creative elan of an artist in full experimentation mode. Using sensory percussion and a battery of synthesisers, Crane creates a sequence of lucid sonic environments, where the real and synthetic meet, overlap and reappear disguised and opaque.
The title's double meaning is immediately apparent; the album is an uncommon take on improvising from a performer incorporating ambient sensibilities and the title also accurately describes the situation many artists found themselves in amidst the pandemic. For Crane, the pandemic provided a rare gift of time that allowed him to explore his love for electronic and analogue production.
"I don't think I will ever make a record like this again - this was one big experiment," he says of a project with DIY trappings. After eventually returning from Italy where he was teaching drums and improv classes as Siena Jazz Institute, Crane settled in Montreal with his Canadian partner. At the beginning of the lockdown, he created a spaceship-like rig in his spare room comprised of assorted synths and 'sensory' percussion (which assigns new sounds to drums). The album features welcome contributions from colleagues phoned in from afar, including saxophonists Logan Richardson and Charlotte Greve, guitarist Simon Angell and bassist Jordan Brooks.
Description
'We're All Improvisers Now' is the debut solo album by New York/Montreal-based performer Tommy Crane, a tranquil, introspective journey through boundary-traversing ambient jazz, buoyed by the creative elan of an artist in full experimentation mode. Using sensory percussion and a battery of synthesisers, Crane creates a sequence of lucid sonic environments, where the real and synthetic meet, overlap and reappear disguised and opaque.
The title's double meaning is immediately apparent; the album is an uncommon take on improvising from a performer incorporating ambient sensibilities and the title also accurately describes the situation many artists found themselves in amidst the pandemic. For Crane, the pandemic provided a rare gift of time that allowed him to explore his love for electronic and analogue production.
"I don't think I will ever make a record like this again - this was one big experiment," he says of a project with DIY trappings. After eventually returning from Italy where he was teaching drums and improv classes as Siena Jazz Institute, Crane settled in Montreal with his Canadian partner. At the beginning of the lockdown, he created a spaceship-like rig in his spare room comprised of assorted synths and 'sensory' percussion (which assigns new sounds to drums). The album features welcome contributions from colleagues phoned in from afar, including saxophonists Logan Richardson and Charlotte Greve, guitarist Simon Angell and bassist Jordan Brooks.
Tracklisting
Tracklisting
Sultan Stevenson
Empirical
Lakecia Benjamin
Samara Joy
Josephine Davies
Linley Hamilton
Alice Zawadzki
Alice Zawadzki
Conrad Herwig
Norma Winstone & Kit Downes
Oded Tzur
Su Rossy Girod, Nat Su, Jorge Rossy
Jonathan Salvi Arugula Sextet
Bob Baldwin
Steven Nichols
Orlando le Fleming
