Zoom Pop is an improvisational symphony by one of the many
incarnations of the band Spiral at the time... currently being called Spiral on....
It consists of 2 movements of 32 minutes each.
It was done without rehearsal or instructions - just the synapses firing in
spontaneous harmony.
Recommended for driving, flying, running and making love...
Aliah just recently addied vocals, Tenor Sax (and chimes) and it was released 11/11/11.
Now we will add moving collaged layers of videoart for it to be used (along with Spiral on... Homeworld released 10/10/10)
for between segments in the new Web/TV Show CREATIVE EVOLUTION.
Click the cover for an excerpt
or go to www.myspace.com/spiralonnow
Currently Featuring:
Paz Rheinstein on Guitar, Flute and Vocals
Guitar and Vocals real time - flute 7 years after.
Aliah Selah Rheinstein on Tenor Sax, Chimes, and Vocals
All added as one take... like she was invited to the jam... 14 years years after.
Steve Bernal on Bass
He now plays cello - this was one of his super-creative moments on electric bass.
In this recording you hear his unique fretless bass sound shining through.
Brad Evilsizer on Drums
Brad has this jazz funk, progressive thing going...
Original Liner Notes When It Was 1st Released:
Improvisation, Jamming, Making it up as you go... As a child I absorbed the orderly melodies and harmonies of my Mother's classical piano. Adolesence brought a different tune. The classical flute modulated into Rock bands playing Jethro Tull covers - but before I learned any of that, it was me alone with a flute in the woods or with my friend Matthew and his harp (Sonny Terry style) playing blues jams to the pine trees in the Catskills, the Adirondacks, and later the Cascades and the Pacific Coast. We both learned licks or styles from here and there, but mostly it was the sound of our souls echoing against the hills and carried by the wind. When I got home to New York City, I would lose myself in a pair of headphones and Hendrix's "Band of Gypsies", the Allman Bros, or the Dead (jams all). While I have also lived through the down side of jamming (years of ‘figuring it out’ on boxes of cassette tapes), for a few hundred hours in between the mundane details of my life, I have experienced the sublime miracle of music streaming and pouring through my hands, feet, ears and vocal cords - when it is happening, I often don't know just what it is until later, I am so absorbed in the dance and balance of creation at the time. Thus I got in the habit, sometime in my early 20's, of finding ways to set up recording gear that would allow these kinds of inspired moments to be captured, and better, to be distilled and edited. In particular, multi-track recording allows the overall mix to be refined as well as smoothing momentary jagged edges - for me an ideal combination of spontaneity and discrimination. And still, many hundreds of hours of nothing worth much and then... I heard Steve Bernal and Brad Evilsizer playing together in early 1996 at a pick up jam at the Elephant Room on 6th Street in Austin. It was like someone had juiced me with 220 volts. On the off chance, I told them I had access to a studio space - would they be willing - I was pinching myself the whole way... On the mix itself, I went ahead and left a few of the reminders of just how spontaneous this session was: in addition to the sound of the tape unrolling at the end of tracks 7 and 13 (the end of two 32 minute reels of analog tape), the intro is me sound checking the vocal mike while the train is already moving and the line that still gets me, the one thing that was said at all about what to play, "Yeah, let’s start with that and see where we go" (referring to what we had already started playing without saying anything). . For me it was like riding a jet airplane on the wing at the speed of sound... and then finding these amazing moments of sublime comtemplation in between - I'll let the music do the talking... My friend Tom Roudebush was more than an engineer in this project - he had developed an expertise in making simple excellent recordings while staying out of the way (known for his campfire recordings at Kerrville, among other things), partially because he is a musician himself. His half-inch Tascam 8-track was the box, his mikes and headphones and outboard gear the virtual world that was the laboratory in which Zoom Pop was birthed. Just this past year (2002), we finally dumped the original tracks down to my computer - I finally finished editing 7 years after the original session. In respect for the original atmosphere of spontaneity, my flute tracks were added 'as if I was there', more or less in a single pass. A few vocal gaffs were omitted, but drums, bass and guitar are unedited. This music is meant for doing whatever you do - a soundtrack for inspiration, interaction and activity. My wish is that you will hear some of the magic that I continue to hear, over and over again. At one point, sections of it became theme music for a number of episodes of "Trippin in Austin", our infamous Austin Access show (predating Wayne's World). Then later (sign of the times), it became the soundtrack to my drive to my computer job. During the 7 years that it aged, I often thought "if no one else heard this but me, it would still be one of the high points of my life". Now I won’t be the only one any longer - may it inspire you in some way as well.
"Spiralon, Dudes..."
Paz