This album offers a unique expression of 21st century avante garde music, recorded in a barn and created utilizing farming artifacts, shelving racks, chairs from the 1950s and everyday items too numerous to mention.

8 MP3 Songs in this album (31:13) !
Related styles: AVANT GARDE: Experimental, CLASSICAL: Percussion Ensemble

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Random Touchâs Turbulent Flesh

What really matters when it comes to Random Touch is not their 38 years of collaboration, or their love of pure improvisation or their disinterest in trading music for dollars. What really matters is that they give birth to music that lies beyond ego/mind/thought. Music such as theirs cannot be made when utilizing the mind. Random Touch describe the creative process as riding a wave. The wave itself lies beyond what thought can understand, or the ability of words to bring understanding. While riding this wave the music is manifested. Because this occurs in a space beyond thought, the experience for these three musicians is more akin to witnessing a manifestation, rather than actively creating one. At the deepest level Random Touch are one with the music as it flows into existence. Only afterwards can they recognize the resulting music as a unique and separate entity.

Nowhere is this more apparent than when they set aside traditional instruments â those devices so loaded with personal and public histories â and explore the alchemy of materials intended for other purposes. They may pound, poke, pluck, stroke, scrape, caress, rub, fling, twirl, bounce, bang, knead, crumple, shake, stir or provoke in any imaginable manner. Whether an oil drum, a shelving rack, a cow stanchion or a scrap of plastic, the individual parts matter only a little; the focus is on the symphony of voices that appear to self assemble as if an invisible hand were at work.

âIt grows out of accepting and valuing surprise and mystery. Itâs all about allowing and letting go; surrendering to the moment. We become space itself.â
- Christopher Brown

"We get carried away. We are literally transported to this indescribable place."
- James Day

Turbulent Flesh is the eleventh album released by Random Touch, and the only one released on vinyl or free of conventional instruments. The recordings were made at Scott Hamillâs Wayside barn in 2007 and 2008 using a Tascam DA-P1 digital audio recorder and Shure SM81 condenser microphones. The recordings were mixed and mastered at Studio Roadnoise using Pro Tools HD. No dubs, edits or studio chicanery were utilized in the mixing. You simply hear the sound of Random Touch and their environment, complete with road noise, frogs, birds and insects. A total of three hundred virgin vinyl albums were manufactured. Turbulent Flesh is available beginning April 6, 2009.

Christopher Brown began formal percussion study in 1963. His initial focus was orchestra and band percussion. In 1965 he began drum-set study with jazz drummer and early drum-set pioneer Dick Dickson. By 1967, contemporaneous with his jazz studies, Brown began playing with a series of rock bands. Influences over the next seven years included rock artists such as The Jimi Hendrix Experience and King Crimson, 20th century composers such as Bella Bartok and Leonard Bernstein, and jazz luminaries such as Miles Davis and Weather Report. A growing interest in multiple artistic mediums led to the creation in 1975 of the Trusty Wourins Performance Ensemble with a number of fellow musicians. This group utilized projected film and slides, actors, improvised and structured music, as well as traditional, invented and âready-madeâ instruments in performances reminiscent of the late 1960âs happenings. Subsequent to Trusty Wourins Brown played with the rock band The Benders and the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He completed a Bachelorâs degree in Film at Columbia College in 1980.

James Day began his formal music education in 1962. He began playing in his first rock band in 1970 as a guitarist. A dramatic and early influence on Day was his introduction to the compositions of Gyorgy Ligeti in Stanley Kurbrickâs 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In addition to Ligeti, he counts among his early influences Luciano Berio, Igor Stravinsky and Herbie Hancockâs Mwandishi group. By 1972 his interest in 20th century composers led him to begin study of the piano and organ. From 1975 to 1978 he performed with the Trusty Wourins Performance Ensemble on keyboards and synthesizer, and collaborated with Christopher Brown on the groupâs films and photographs. In 1976 he began formal composition study with Paul Cochran of the Chicago Conservatory College, followed by study with Robert Hanson, principal conductor of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra. Dayâs formal composition and piano study continued through 1981. He returned to rock music in 1978 with The Benders and from 1982 to 1983 played with the rock band Sniper, Sniper.

Scott Hamill taught himself acoustic and electric guitar in the mid-seventies and became guitarist for The Benders in 1978. He counts among his early influences Bill Frisell, Phil Manzanera and Charles Ives. Subsequent to The Benders he played with a number of bands including The Browns.

Matthew Ebbin began videotaping Random Touch performances in 1998. Shortly thereafter he began joining the group for improvised video outings as well as more formal shoots.

For additional information visit www.randomtouch.com.