RTD3/Aluminati: Suspended Disbelief

RTD3 is a trio of veteran Bay Area improvisers, Ron Heglin (trombone, voice), Tom Nunn (original instruments) and Doug Carroll (cello), who have played together for decades. Ron speaks, sings and chants songs and stories from unrecognizable languages, probably from another dimension, and brings brass into the mix as needed to reach a certain edge. Tom brings his own unique sounds that project an alien kind of music, from the dry scratchings of insects in the ground and trees of a distant planet to the long howls of entities most at home in the vacuous realm of space. Doug celloistically sings the melodies of a mind and soul divested of any sense of normalcy, yet somehow titillating the memory of long ago… It be a treat!
Aluminati – a quartet featuring all metallic instruments. Using aluminum rods suspended on inflated balloons (harmonic rods), stroke rods, end-struck rods, heat-bent rods (zing trees), bowls, chaseplate and other metallic paraphernalia, this quartet presents a music that has a resemblance to the Indonesian gamelan, though uniquely different. The harmonic and enharmonic chorus of tones are heard through varyingly dense harmonic/percussive textures with melodic elements, hocketing and other contrapuntal relationships, within an architectural compositional context. While improvisation is a fundamental part of the process, composed structures – based on or alluding to Indonesian gamelan practice – form a basis for this performance. The players are: David Samas, Tom Nunn, Ian Saxton and Derek Drudge.