Most Definitely

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2023-06-09

Label: Rataplan Records

Most Definitely - Liner Notes by Gray

I want to start by asking you a straightforward question. What do you think our world needs more of? As you can imagine there are many great ways of sharing and explaining your personal thinking and it’s current relationship to how the world is turning. Some common and obvious examples could be love, food, health, empathy, equality, diversity, etc. Please allow me to share my answer. The world needs more listening. As simple as it sounds in my mind, it is the lack of implementation of this critical aural component which is needed to improve a lot of what's making our world what it isn’t today.

I believe that by first understanding your own hearing as a natural human trait, (yet an increasingly harder patient skill to perform on the highest level consistently) of which is not often talked about or worked on as a craft of unlimited possibilities; that humanity can achieve much more in harmony with one another. If we’d listen to each other more deeply, clearly, and honestly, (I’d like to specify with music then with words) wouldn't we be on our way forward, not only in communicating and understanding, but as a result simultaneously on a path of global healing? Just listen, that's what musicians do every day all day.

Listening is the most important form of communication we have, its effects are greater than speaking. You will learn more by allowing yourself to be truly open, focused, and by challenging your everyday listening beyond what your ears and mind are capable of comprehending. I honestly and most definitely believe that through increased listening to not only human words, but to artistic musical and sonic actions our world will be a better place. One where we connect more, express more, relate and vibrate on a higher level; one where we try to understand each other more deeply through our actions of sonics and beyond.

This recording “Most Definitely” represents another musical offering of which is my first ever solo. I wanted to create a work of high detail where people can listen closely in more nuanced ways to what it is that I am communicating in my playing as a widely influenced active human listener, artist, and drummer. As you can guess, this project took me some time, roughly 40 years in the making. I truly hope you are able to find some fun as well as a deeper understanding of expression from me and all of the musical artists from the worlds (and planets) of past, present, and future.

Thank you for reading this, and hopefully deeply listening to my music!

Devin Gray

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Most Definitely - Artist Statement

When I think about my life and what inspires me to work each day it quickly comes down to being all about sound. I got turned on to music at an early age through the power of percussion, and therefore music in the traditional tonal sense has always come as an additional bonus to me for which the unlimited worlds of sound can be redefined. Through the natural state of universal harmonic structures this often translates into similarly known conclusive musical languages. Myself as a drummer in a specific solo circumstance find that my ears are frequently drawn to working primarily outside of the aforementioned musical architectures. My work is often a result of heavily obscuring more common practices while blending inventive forms of the fringes to which I find most interesting in all of music. You could even call this tradition a form of “current modernism” and by listening to hopefully new music and sounds equally (without quick-draw judgment) the musician and listener is able to reach forward into more truthful places of humanity and the world. My whole body says that all sounds and options are created equal, and yet it is most importantly about the precision and placement of each sound in its relation to how one lives that becomes the reasons for musical end results.

There is a very mysteriously magical space in improvisational music that will (if I’m lucky) sometimes allow myself to enter. We’re all very aware of it, embrace it, and can spend our entire lives reaching for it. As a performer I knew that I needed to get into my meditative magical zone as many times as possible during the recording to get the levitating results I needed. At this point in my life as a drummer if my performances are not at my highest level possible then I wouldn’t have decided to proceed with the project. Luckily I was practicing quite regularly in preparation the months leading up to the recording; perhaps the most regularly in my life to date.

I wanted to think of improvisational seeds to allow for my truest self to not get in the way of more structure. In the end I wanted to think of a few main ideas; reaching for my personal limitations and explorations, and the perception of the actions of my sounds as they are delivered to my listeners. I want to put myself in the place of honest musical meditation, a space where I lose myself to the music and truly let the music take over me as the vessel structure that only music can do for humans. I want my audiences to dig deeper into the sonic spaces that I am creating. Not just in my solo music but also in my compositions for my bands, past, present and future. I really like performing solo because of the risk level you bring upon yourself. You only have one chance to get it "right" and I love that place of musical pressure that this situation provides.

Before recording this project I came up with a few short lists of some of the components I was dreaming of getting to on that single 6 hour recording day. I wanted to continue to experiment with short improvisations with textures, quiet finger and hand solos, something ASMR style for drums, open intense snare drum rolls, mallet solos, ideas with traps such as wood blocks and sticks on rims, cymbals only solos and on and on. I also wrote down a few different types of grooves that I felt I would like to try to express all during my hopefully reached meditative states. More ideas such as false clave patterns, Max Roachisms, punk-thrash vibes, the use of brushes, embracing my love for fast and slow swing playing, mixing free flowing moveable time signatures, and of course purely free open improvisation can be hopefully heard on this record.

Every day that we can live to be further inspired is a success, and without these musicians' lives and history of heavy contributions I would have no reference point on where or how to grow. A few of the many great musicians that happen to be drummers that come to mind of which have influenced me in the making of this are: (in no particular order) Milford Graves, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Marilyn Mazur, Ed Blackwell, Baby Dodds, Nasheet Waits, Evelyn Glennie, Gerald Cleaver, Gerry Hemingway, Dave King, Eli Kessler, Jamire Williams, Dan Weiss, Ches Smith, Michael Zerang, Max Jaffee, Jason Nazary, Booker Stardrum, Warren Smith, Pierre Favre, Susie Ibarra, and Tatsuta Nakatani, among many many more.

This is my first ever solo record. I’ve seen and heard many friends and great musicians over the years do it, and as much as I always wanted to do it, I could somehow not bring myself to face the situation truthfully until now. I get a lot of satisfaction by not rushing and waiting for the right time for things to unfold naturally. Perhaps one can even hear and feel this in some of my playing on this recording. Performing solo in different locations and for different cultures and audiences has always been a very personally exciting feeling for me. I always want to share more and can’t wait to share my sounds with anyone willing to listen to my story. It would have been quite easy to overthink general approaches to recording this project. For sure I could have done a week straight of recording every day. But I often wonder if this would have yielded better results? Who's to say. The point is that it is an honest offering, to which it most definitely is.

There are a lot of people I need to give thanks to for the involvement in the making of this work. But I need to give a huge thanks to Risto Pikkarainen who took the time to dig in deep and truly hear what I have to say and who so eloquently blended and balanced my madness with his creative storytelling precision.

Thank you for listening,

Devin Gray