Jon Mueller

Jon Mueller’s singular performance idiom is an awe-inspiring display of elegant athleticism, preternatural focus, brute restraint, and ecstatic, monastic reverie. Mueller’s approach requires and demands a state of inner quietude from witnesses. Yet, from his seemingly metronomic exercise blossoms every possible tint and hue of infinite spectral sound. “My connection to playing drums is to use them to enter a different state of mind. What may seem like an escape is actually bringing an energy or feeling into a room. That energy is something I can’t really define, but it is distinct. Achieving it is the basis of quality by which I analyze my work. Ultimately, the construction of performances and the arrangement of sound in recordings, is to create an experience with that energy.”

Mueller studied jazz drumming with Hal Russell at Columbia College in Chicago, and singing with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela at the Kirana Center for Indian Classical Music in New York. A prolific performer, he tours extensively and has appeared at festivals and venues throughout the United States, Canada, England, Europe and Japan. In addition to his solo work, Mueller has collaborated and performed with groups such as Who is the Witness?, Mind Over Mirrors, Volcano Choir, Collections of Colonies of Bees, and Pele. He has also worked with artists including Olivia Block, Aaron Turner, Faith Coloccia, Timo van Luijk, Dawn Springer, Chris Hefner, Jason Kahn, Hal Rammel, Asmus Tietchens, Z’EV, Rhys Chatham, Jarboe, James Plotkin, Duane Pitre, and Raymond Dijkstra. He has released music on renowned labels such as Room40, Astres d’Or, American Dreams, Table of the Elements, Type Recordings, Important Records, Taiga Records, SIGE Records, and his own imprint, Rhythmplex. Jon Mueller plays Dream Cymbals.