Max Koch - Ten Bulls

Processes: Neural pathways that transmit and convey signals. The music on this record is characterized by the passing on of signals, messages that do not wait for a specific answer yet formulate any question we ponder. They are messages we were not looking for, but find we simply need after hearing them. This record is a skillful interweaving of playfulness and artistic expressiveness that does not hunger for acknowledgement - it asserts itself in the pure, abstract and simultaneously crystal clear form in which it appears.

The structure of it's compositions is an idea that is further developed and catalyzed with every creative impulse of the performing musicians. The musicians seem to act independently, yet in doing so only promote the core principle of musical unity all the more clearly. No note, no contribution seems random here. Instead, it is a collective conceptual development, a collaborative grappling with an idea that the musicians bring to a conclusion while playing, arriving at their own answer.

The quintet plays Max Koch's original compositions, as well as a piece by Ornette Coleman. Musical openness is unwaveringly central, not restricting the collective artwork but enhancing it. The five musicians engage in the total commitment and concurrent abandonment of the individual to bring about a unity of sound, expression and sensibility. And in doing so, they have created a distillation of the powerful potential of each passing moment.