William Hoshal - River Of Clouds (2017)

Ideas for this album actually started about ten years ago, when I was in the midst of studying indigenous percussion and trance drumming. A percussionist friend and I were playing in a small cafe. About ten minutes into the first set, we both started improvising using loop pedals (not a new concept, obviously) -- him on drums and percussion, and myself on flutes. Twenty minutes later, we blew off the rest of the set lists for the night and from that point, every gig we played became completely improvised.

We went our separate ways, musically speaking, and I began toying with the idea of creating percussion loops with my own fledgling drumming skills to set up meditative beds over which to layer extended improvisations. As is often the case, the pieces took on lives of their own and there were times where the melodic improvisations seemed a distraction as I became more interested in how the different layers of percussion and static pads moved and swirled around each other.

One early morning, I was out with my wife, an extremely gifted landscape photographer. She was intently focused on capturing a cliff face reflection in a large pool of water in an Arizona canyon. While she stood motionless in very cold water, waiting for any ripples to subside, I daydreamed and watched the colors of the clouds and the slowly brightening sky swirl around in the gentle waves of the water.

While this album is clearly more rhythmically and groove-oriented than the last few releases, it hopefully still maintains an ambient flavor as the percussion sequences create their own feeling of suspension. I should point out as well...all of the improvisations were one-take, "live" in the studio...

Tracks:
01. William Hoshal - River Of Clouds Part I (11:16)
02. William Hoshal - West of Everything (10:54)
03. William Hoshal - Deep Light (14:27)
04. William Hoshal - Maintaining Status (7:03)
05. William Hoshal - Fragile Days (8:59)
06. William Hoshal - Muipo (8:07)
07. William Hoshal - Paths, Prints, and Pause (12:39)
08. William Hoshal - Tale of the Lizard's Heart (7:34)
09. William Hoshal - River of Clouds Parts I and II (extended version) (31:55)