The Deep Listening Band (DLB) arrived in Chicago late Sunday and early Monday (11 and 12 April 1992) just as the town was being evacuated from the great tunnel flood. What is it about the DLB that relates so well to water? The DLB was formed by accident 8 October 1988 while recording its award winning Deep Listening CD for New Albion Records in a two million gallon cistern with a reverberation time of 45 seconds on an old military base (Fort Worden) 70 miles northwest of Seattle. Just a few months later the DLB was recording Troglodyte's Delight for ¿What Next? Records in an old limestone quarry (Tarpaper Cave) near Rosendale, New York which had lovely dripping water sounds and Valhalla-like mists. About a year and a half after that the DLB was once again in the cistern to record The Ready Made Boomerang CD released in January 1992, also on New Albion. This "upstart Deep Listening Band worships in a cistern chapel (and) explores the mysterious spaces between notes, where all is sweet dissonance and beading microtones" according to Marc Weidenbaum in the April 1992 issue of Pulse!
In December of 1991 the Deep Listening Band went to perform in Jameos del Agua, a marvelous concert space built in (wouldn't you just know!) a lava cave on Lanzarote, the northernmost Canary Island. By this time keyboardist David Gamper had been with the DLB for a year joining trombonist, Stuart Dempster, accordionist Pauline Oliveros and vocalist/computer wizard Panaiotis. One must recognize that they are all composers--in fact, the DLB is a composer collective--and the performance designations for current members do not begin to demonstrate each person's contributions: Dempster on conch shells, didjeridus and garden hose; Gamper on Expanded Instrument System (EIS) development, overtone flutes, and found instruments; Oliveros on voice, bells, and conch shells.
The DLB has regularly invited guests to perform with it. Dancer/vocalist Julie Lyon (Balliett) Rose, vocalist Thomasa Eckert, percussionists Fritz Hauser and George Marsh, writer Ione, performance artist Linda Montano, and clarinetist William O. Smith form only a small part of the guest list. Whether performing in San Francisco at Life On the Water (October 1990), in Austin with the Sharir Dance Company (March 1990) or the Ellen Fullman Long String Instrument (1994), in Brussels, Oslo, and Stockholm (April 1991), in New York and Lanzarote (December 1991), Tokyo (December 1992) in a hall with over 700 loudspeakers in the walls and ceiling, or rattling our Pots and Pans in New York's "The Kitchen" (January 1995), the DLB stands ready to sink to new depths. The DLB doesn't play just anywhere!
Certainly an unexpected depth was reached with events leading up to Panaiotis' resignation in June 1993; the DLB had to reinvent itself. While this was going on, and unbeknownst to the DLB, a group at the "Alternative Festival" in Moscow led by Anton Bugatov played along with our Troglodyte's Delight CD in our first "virtual" concert; one could say they were DLB guests! Barely six months after the personnel change the DLB played a "monumental" (Ione's description) benefit "Non-Stop Flight" concert in Kingston, New York in January 1994 inviting some 13 guest performers (modeled after the five hour Marathon in Japan)--the DLBB (Deep Listening Big Band)! Work then took place with composer Ellen Fullman and her Long String Instrument, and Band, (LSIB) in three separate week long residencies in Austin, Texas during January, February, and November culminating in several fantastic energizing performances. Fullman represents the fourth of seven DLB commissions (other composers are Fritz Hauser, Linda Montano, Joe McPhee, Panaiotis, Pauline Oliveros, and Bakida Carroll).
The DLB released two CDs during 1995. Sanctuary, recorded in Kingston, New York's lovely old Trinity United Methodist Church (TUMC) on Mode Records, features Non-Stop Flight mentioned above, along with the Expanded Instrument System* (EIS) and TUMC's unique Tracker organ. Tosca Salad represents a two year DLB history, from June 1993 to May 1995. This CD sampler introduces the Deep Listening* label and presents twelve excerpts from concerts and recording sessions including Ten Ears Celebration in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Pauline Oliveros Foundation, Inc. Several CDs are in the works. One CD will be Deep Time featuring Fritz Hauser as a DLB commissioned composer and performer; another CD Suspended Music will feature the DLB with Ellen Fullman's Long String Instrument in two DLB commissions: Fullman's TexasTravelTextures and Pauline Oliveros' Epigraphs in the Time of AIDS.
*Deep Listening and Expanded Instrument System are trademarks of the Pauline Oliveros Foundation, Inc.
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