Adam Schatz, Qasim Naqvi, y Carmen Quill

album release show for Adam Schatz's Civil Engineering Vol. 1

"I never thought "I think we've got something here" until we listened back to the tape, twenty of us crammed into the control room. The tape was dumped into the computer and the sessions went on a hard drive you can fit in the pocket of your jeans and I mixed the recordings on my laptop while on tour with Japanese Breakfast the following month. Ancient and modern technologies shaking hands.

A similar handshake happens with improvisation. The waves of intention and risk and adventure that have been surfed by musical improvisation go back far, far, far, far, far in time. As modern bodies on a modern planet spinning in ancient space, we're constantly reckoning with what was and what could be. By actively improvising and meeting each other on that forgiving plane, we can peek into new vantages and obtain new perspectives. We can feel challenged and poised. We can feel dread. But we'll be damned if it isn't all felt in real time, ancient approaches adding extra calcium to our bones, future questions answering themselves with newer questions.

To me, a sentient work in progress, I feel that improvisation is such a damn gift. I'm grateful for Carmen & Qasim for their the willingness to expand out and dig down. There's nothing quite like taking a bunch of me's and making a big We. We pile on and shift. We reboot and rework. Here's what happened this one time. Thanks for joining us."

- Adam Schatz