Stephen Rush (Moog, Rhodes, Effects, Toys, Euphonium) **** Tom Abbs (Bass, Tuba, Cello, Violin, Percussion, Didjeridoo) ***** Geoff Mann (Drums, Vibes, Cornet, Mandolin)
Influences
This is "Marble Screens", the film was created by Russ Kuhner. It features the Yuganaut performance of a piece by the same name, written by Stephen Rush. enjoy...
Sounds Like
"Get your boarding passes ready and queue up for an interstellar journey in "This Musicship", piloted by Yuganaut, a crew of three intrepid explorers skilled in traveling the byways of space and time in the spirit of such previous pathfinders as Sun Ra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and Miles Davis in his ’60s and ’70s electric period. Stephen Rush, Tom Abbs, and Geoff Mann create genuinely unpredictable soundscapes throughout this highly diverse disc, but always with attention to organic development and flow... Yuganaut proves that their chosen style of musical expression can be the sound of something genuinely startling.
- (Dave Lynch / All Music Guide)
"Yuganaut demonstrates that it is possible to be eclectic and have a strong group identity at the same time. All three members of the group are highly schooled musicians who can do anything that their fellow travelers demand of them."
- (Piotr Michalowski / S.E.M.J.A. Update)
"Three men - driven by an inspired and fearless abandon - who have come together to weave a sonic statement of utter brilliance."
- (Alex Jasperse / Muse’s Muse)
"...’This Musicship’ might easily and completely sweep any and every listener up and away on its wild slipstream, dazzling with previously unimagined soundscapes that pass in a flash. Grab onto what you hold dear regarding musical assumptions then dive into this alternative – or is it the fundimental? -- sonic universe, where kaleidoscopic timbres give new meaning to terms like "melody" and "harmony" while time (rhythm) is felt more than measured as a crosshatch of infinite distinct moments embodying a singular unceasing pulse... I dwell on the irrelevance of labels to Yuganaut’s ’This Musicship’ and the pieces’ ineffability, open possibilities and formal freedom from strictures because as soon as I get a fix on what’s happening in one track – each quite different, yet all complementary – it changes. This is due not only to the astonishing array of tonalities Rush summons from his Fender Rhodes and Minimoog, or the pliant but tethered throb Abbs maintains in the midst of raging atonality, or the variety of attacks Mann commands – but also because their real-time intuitive interactions add up to a unique group sensibility. Yuganauts identifies Sun Ra, electric Miles Davis and the Art Ensemble of Chicago (Roscoe Mitchell being honored with its concluding "hymn") as heroes; Paul Bley in the early 1970s, multi-keyboardist John Medeski, even guitarist Charlie Hunter may be added as construing something like the range of incidents, densities, shapes, distortions, forms and transformations conjured on by This Musicship. And there are probably alt.rock ensembles, post-punk groups, sheer noise bands that propose parallel paths, too. In truth, though, I’ve heard no other individuals or ensemble establish so confidently and move so smoothly through the dirty angularities and belltone clarities, woodsy intimacies and astro-glow grandeurs, nuances of bravado and wistfulness ’This Musicship’ explores.
- (Howard Mandel / Senior Contributor to Downbeat)
Consisting of Stephen Rush (Keyboards, Toys, Euphonium & more), Tom Abbs (Bass, Tuba & Didjeridoo) and Geoff Mann (Drums, Cornet, Mandolin & Vibes), Yuganaut is a collective of improvising virtuosos. Playing pre-written and structured compositions, they explore sonic spaces by listening deeply to each others articulation and interpretation of the score. The surprising dialogue that results from this process is like watching an extremely well-honed basketball team pass the ball. Well-oiled, communicating, intuitive, and almost ESP-like in it’s performance, the group is comfortable in many styles/genres, so the music flows from funk to swing, open jazz, to avante-classical aesthetics. With training in diverse musics such as strict classical Western Music, jazz, rock, South Indian and electronica, Yuganaut pushes the notion of eclecticism swiftly out the window and proclaims loudly that the world is a lace where all musics can find a happy home, together.
Stephen Rush is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, where he works in an interdisciplinary capacity in five departments with music, dance, art, engineering and other students. He is the director of the Digital Music Ensemble, and the Music Director of the Dance Department. Stephen Rush has been widely commissioned, premiered and performed including the Merce Cunningham Studio and Merkin Hall in New York, Gyory Ballett in Hungary;at universities and colleges in California, Florida, New York, Texas, Wisconsin; and internationally in Canada (Toronto’s Fringe Festival), Costa Rica, Germany, Spain, Hungary, New Zeeland, Norway and Switzerland. Recent performances of Rush’s music (in 1998) have taken place in Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Hungary. Among his concert (non-dance) music eight works have been published (by Dorn, CRC and C. Alan Publications), and has enjoyed performance exposure as far afield as England, France, Ireland, Russia and India. He has recorded his work with the Warsaw National Symphony and members of the New York Philharmonic, and has released CD’s on CALA, CRC Publications, MMC Records, Centraur and the Equilibrium label. Subventions for Rush’s formidable body of work have come from the Michigan Council for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, United States Information Agency, Soros Foundation, Meet the Composer and American Music Center. Rush has lectured at IRCAM in Paris, at the First International Dance Festival in Hungary, at the National University in Costa Rica and the University of Madras in India, among numerous others. He was awarded, with his choreographer/collaborator Sandra Torijano-DeYoung the Mentioné Honorifico from the Government of Costa Rica for innovative work in Modern Dance. He is also known as a jazz pianist, performing with his electronic jazz group "Quartex", with jazz legend Roscoe Mitchell, and as a co-producer of the radio series, "Uncharted Jazz" on NPR. He has also studied Indian (Carnatic Singing) since 1992, and has received grants from the Kellogg Foundation and the University of Michigan to collaborate with Indian Singers, Musicians and Dancers to perform in the United States and India.
Born in New York City in 1975, Geoff Mann has been playing music from the age of 7, starting on guitar then quickly making the switch to the drums. Over the years, he studied at Appel Farm Arts & Music Center, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, and at New School University with such teachers as Bob Moses, Reggie Workman, Arnie Lawrence, Charli Persip, Andrew Cyrille, Michael Carvin and Herman Foster.
Geoff now lives in Brooklyn, NY where he plays with a number of bands, including his own "Eternal Buzz Brass Band". In addition, Geoff plays mandolin, cornet, banjo & bass, and writes music soundtracks for film & television.
He also plays currently with the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, Key to the City, and Fire of Space. Past groups have included Steve Swell’s NY BrassWood Trio, Ori Kaplan, Carol Lipnik & Spookarama, and with his late father, flutist Herbie Mann.
Bassist, tubist and improviser Tom Abbs has been performing and recording in a variety of contexts (classical, rock, jazz, and improvised musics) for the past 20 years. A Seattle native, Tom relocated to New York in 1991 where he studied with such masters as Reggie Workman, Buster Williams, Joe Chambers, Junior Mance, Chico Hamilton and Arthur Taylor. In the past decade Tom has developed a driving percussive style on the bass that encompasses the deep emotion and grit of Charles Mingus and Jimmy Garrison while showing the dexterity and inventiveness of Scott La Faro. His fluid tuba style has shed many of the instrument’s sluggish connotations and transformed it into a soaring solo and sharply percussive groove machine. Equally comfortable in "free" and "inside" settings, Abbs’ versatility and depth as a player has kept him busy backing up the likes of Lawrence "Butch" Morris, Charles Gayle, Daniel Carter, Steve Swell, Roy Campbell Jr., Sabir Mateen, Jemeel Moondoc, Assif Tahar, Borah Bergman, Billy Bang, Andrew Lamb, Warren Smith and many others. Tom is currently a member of the collective experimental trio, Triptych Myth with Cooper-Moore and Chad Taylor (Hopscotch Records) and is leading his own group, “Frequency Response” (CIMP Records).
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