released April 1, 2023

1, 3, 5, & 6 with voltage assistance
2 and 4 without voltage assistance


Recorded on December 6th, 2022 by Nick Broste at the Elastic Arts Foundation, Chicago, IL
Mixed by Gordon Comstock
Mastered by Todd Carter / bel_ Air Studios
Artwork by Fede Peñalva
Notes by James Falzone

wordpress.com/view/timdaisy.wordpress.com
www.fredlonberg-holm.bandcamp.com
This is Relay Recordings 034

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Time is everything for musicians. Our art happens within its confines, yet most of what we do is try to manipulate it: pulling, suspending, wrenching, resisting. Time is the river we wade into each time we create music, and it does not wait for us. We dip in and we are in the flow, inviting the listener along for the journey. The plot line of time in music thickens when we consider the multiple time cycles that are part of the musical phenomenon. There’s the time the music takes to happen—yes, this is the most obvious. But there are deeper time cycles too, ones a listener may not even be aware of, but which add to the experience nonetheless. And there’s also the time cycle of the musicians themselves, the journeys they’ve taken to get to the moment of creation.

Current 23 documents such a journey for Tim Daisy and Fred Lonberg-Holm, who have been making music together for over 20 years. Each has a hazy memory of becoming aware of the other in the late 90s or early 2000s in Chicago, which was a fertile time in that city’s creative music history. They worked loosely together in one-off projects and more closely in groups led by saxophonist and composer Ken Vandermark, recording and touring extensively throughout Europe and North America with Vandermark 5 and The Frame Quartet. Working in such close proximity — literally, if we think of cramped tour vans — they developed the type of rapport that only comes through time and the belief that the journey is as important as the destination. Saxophonist Dave Rempis, a fellow collaborator with Daisy and Lonberg-Holm in countless groups, puts it well: “They are the consummate Yin Yang pairing. Tim provides a rock-solid foundation while Fred probes and pokes everything he encounters, asking the unasked. The two of them as a pair are unstoppable.”

I’ve been on some of this journey with Tim and Fred through our work together in various projects, particularly Tim’s trio Vox Arcana, which has released several recordings and played many concerts over the years. I’ve witnessed the remarkable bespoke language that has developed between them first-hand and know its vocabulary, but also its grammar. Their language is simultaneously logical and full of surprises, bound by aesthetic expectations yet limitless. As well as I know their language, I was surprised at many turns in my listening of Current 23. Take “Bike Lane?” as an example: the opening is classic Tim and Fred with virtuosic cello lines and extended string techniques that push the limits of the instrument, and the clacking and clamoring of Tim’s found-object style of drumming where we seem to encounter every sound possible in life coming out of his drum kit. When we think a fitting ending has been reached, a pizzicato descent from Fred brings us into a new chapter that finds the two of them skittering around one another in cat and mouse fashion for several more minutes until the rhythm builds in intensity and they find an ending that feels inevitable, rendering the previous “false” ending illogical in hindsight. This is their magic: putting the listener constantly at the edge of understanding.

It should be noted that “Bike Lane?” is fully acoustic, noted by the phrase “without voltage assistance” elsewhere in the album notes. This nomenclature is worth pondering in reference to this track but also the other tracks, most of which make use of live electronics. Everything on this record, whether enhanced by “voltage assistance” or not, is in service to the moment and to the music. Again, classic Tim and Fred.

Another time cycle we need to listen for in Current 23 is what I might call the small cycle of time within time. This is where we actually hear Tim and Fred thinking, a unique attribute in fully improvised music. On any of these tracks, listen for how an idea starts, begins to develop, but then darts off in a different direction sparked by a specific gesture from one of them. If you listen closely (headphones are recommended), you can hear Tim drop something or pick something up — a new idea has entered his mind and we hear . . . is that a metal chain being dragged across the snare drum? A cooking pot being scraped on a cymbal? Brushes on a glockenspiel? A transistor radio playing a snippet of a random newscast? It’s hard to make it all out, but it’s as if we’re hearing time stop and start in sync with Tim’s thinking, hearing, and memory. And Fred is the master of this time cycle, “asking the unasked” as Dave Rempis put it. His playing on this record may seem effortless but it’s as if we’re hearing the entire history of modern music being funneled through his cello and electronics; the already and the not yet in full service of the now. Though a listener can dip into the river of this music at any point and experience the time cycle I’m referencing, listen deeply to “Screen Time” and I think you’ll hear what I hear; two master musicians pulling, suspending, wrenching, resisting.

It is not uncommon to hear people ask how they should listen to improvised music and it’s a fair question. While various gambits are possible, in the case of Current 23, I think it’s fairly simple; listen to the conversation of two friends and long-time colleagues who are not afraid to interrupt or argue a bit, whose vocabulary is nuanced and varied, whose grammar is forged by a long history of conversing. Dave Rempis’ reference to the Chinese philosophical concept of Yin and Yang is a fitting way to summarize Tim and Fred’s playing on Current 23. If we define it as “opposite, but interconnected forces,” then we have a perfect metaphor for the ways the duo interacts across these tracks. They are truly opposite, but interconnected forces in the flow of multiple time cycles, and we are along for the riveting and resplendent journey.


James Falzone
Clarinetist and Composer
Dean, Cornish College of the Arts