Notes
A Box and a Word and Duologue bring the number of releases in the past year to four, as Random Touch continue in their quest to take improvisation to new levels. Relying as always on the magic of invitation and serendipity, they use beauty, tension and darkness to create cinematic music that touches and transcends the worlds of rock, jazz and 20th century classical music. "One consequence of our prolific output is that you are hearing virtually pure improvisation. The urge to perform post-production surgery is quickly extinguished when there are hundreds of recordings waiting in the wings. The last time we dubbed a track was five cds ago. Perhaps when I'm 90 I'll revisit some of these outtakes." Christopher Brown, drummer \'The thing about Random Touch that I like is the effect of just a sound, a sound that will get right into your bloodstream. It starts effecting your emotions. It's just magic.\' James Day, keyboardist \'Unlike traditional musicians who seek to hone their skills to a point of utter control, we veer away when technique would make us too predictable. We know we need freshness and a sense of fun, and our pursuit of these inevitably leads to using instruments, genres and every day objects in ways that were never intended. When we play we don\'t know where we are going or how we are getting there. Discovering the answers to these questions, in real time, is pure musical joy.\' Christopher Brown You can sense the spirit of Can, King Crimson and Pink Floyd, but the music of Random Touch lies outside of simple categories or comparisons. Their music appears sourced from the mythic plane where the collective consciousness of the whole and the individual unconscious become one. The result is dreamy, hypnotic, and otherworldly; it is music that seems to float, free of gravity, continuously on the verge of cohesion and collapse. Random Touch founders Christopher Brown and James Day have an old and synergistic relationship that began with collaborations in high school (an original rock opera) and college (commissioned multi-media piece Broken Glass among others). Brown and Day first collaborated with member Scott Hamill (guitar) in 1978 and member Matthew Ebbin (camera) in 1998. In addition to music, the visual arts have been an integral part of their work over the years. To Random Touch they are all vibration. Whether videotaping the tight, electric frequency of the color violet or recording the long and lazy thrum of a hammered steel girder, it is all raw material, ready for the alchemy of transmutation. On June 6, 2008 their ninth and tenth works, Duologue and A Box and a Word, will be released. A journey through beauty, tension and darkness awaits the listener. Some may consider the 57 minute A Box and a Word their most ear-friendly and personal release to date. Listen as Scott Hamill, James Day and Christopher Brown converge once again to explore and flesh out the unfamiliar. 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 Elliot Carter and Morton Subotnick, 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 "ready-made" instruments in performances reminiscent of the late 1960's happenings. Subsequent to Trusty Wourins Brown played with the rock band The Benders and the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He completed a Bachelor's de