ununu

ununu

Composers: 
Melanie Dyer
Kurt Ralske
Todd Capp
Anna Gruman
Performers: 
Melanie Dyer
Kurt Ralske
Todd Capp
Anna Gruman
Catalog Number: 
#1 085
Genre: 
experimental
Jazz
new music
Release Date: 
May 26, 2023
1 CD
UnunuiTunes Artist's PageiTunes Album Page
Song TitleTimePrice
1.Just a Moment04:14$0.99
2.Cenotaph07:30$0.99
3.Consciousness En Masse12:04
4.Broken Wheel05:53$0.99
5.The Ascent11:02
6.Wayfare09:40$0.99
7.The Unlikelihood of Being05:53$0.99
One Sheet: 

Ununu’s existence (ununu = 1 in Esperanto), and their eponymous new album, are perhaps best described by the track titled, “The Unlikelihood of Being.” The album is a compilation of improvised music sessions between Todd Capp (drums), Kurt Ralske (flutes/reeds), Melanie Dyer (viola) and Anna Gruman (accordion), in a back-avenue Gowanus rehearsal studio. It’s a late pandemic, post-lockdown effort by musicians from adjacent worlds who jammed freely and eventually developed a distinct sonic power and connection from August 2021 until July 2022. 

Ralske hauled the field equipment up steep, concrete stairs, set up the mics, edited, mixed and mastered these tracks. He even dimmed the bare ceiling bulb for atmospheric effect. Everyone showed up ready to make something happen. The resulting seven tracks are moments of intense creative generosity and dialogue, blessed by the absence of sonic-bleed from the metal bands in neighboring studios. 

New York native Todd Capp began playing drums in South Side Chicago basements, where jazz met psychedelia and the avant-garde redefined blues, absorbing new approaches to sound, space and time from the newly-formed Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the late-1960s. He currently resides in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where he’s spent the last 40-plus years exploring the shapes of swing – sonic textures and tangents of the space-time continuum and the human heart – through improvised music. 

Melanie Dyer, who studied viola symphonic/solo repertoire, and matriculated on jazz bandstands at Connolly’s Stardust Lounge (Roxbury/Boston) and St. Nick’s Pub (Harlem/NYC) starting in the 1980’s is relatively new to creative improvisation. Her work with Marshall Allen and the Sun Ra Arkestra, Henry Grimes, William Parker and several other notable musicians in creative improvisation inform her sound. 

Kurt Ralske is an active improvising musician and composer. best-known for his work as a visual artist, including the permanent, 9-channel video installation that resided in the lobby of the MoMA in NYC from 2004 to 2015. His discography includes numerous independent and collaborative indie-rock & pop recordings beginning from the late 1980s. 

Anna Gruman, primarily a multimedia artist and set designer, has a background in European folk accordion traditions. She began her journey into improvisation during these sessions. 

Reviews: 

DOWNTOWN MUSIC GALLERY

"This disc makes me smile inside and outside as it is “free music” at its best." - Bruce Lee Gallanter