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Jon Mueller
Percussionist Jon Mueller returns to Arts + Literature Laboratory with Afterlife Cartoons on Saturday, March 19, 2022 at 7:00pm. Asumaya (Luke Bassuener) will open the show. Tickets are $10 online in advance ($8 for students and ALL Members) at https://jonmueller.bpt.me, or $15 at the door for everyone.
Mueller's Afterlife Cartoons are solo acoustic percussion performances that use repetitive tom patterns and subtle shifts in grid-like pulsing to instigate overtones, phasing, and choir-like acoustic phenomena that transform the work from mere drum solo to the sonic illusion of a small orchestra. Rhythmic minimalism, contemporary phrasing, and energetic sustain drive Mueller's improvisations into a space somewhere between modern electronic music and primal drumming, inspiring audiences toward movement and contemplation.
“It was simple & complex / minimal & maximal / it was like a one man orchestra of excited strings & when you went to the cymbals at the end I had the most intense overtone experience since MBV in 91!” - Tim Kinsella
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... Read More
Asumaya is the solo-looping project of Madison WI percussionist and multi-instrumentalist, Luke Bassuener. Layers of interlocking harmonies and rhythmic patterns become churning compositions designed to make heads spin and feet move. Drawing inspiration from his time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana, and from his other lives as a public elementary art teacher and a part-time post-punk/dub/jazz drummer, Bassuener's songs sound like a warped "world music" from a place that might not exist.
PLAN YOUR VISIT
Arts + Literature Laboratory is located at 111 S. Livingston Street #100, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703.
Our galleries are normally open Tuesday through Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday noon to 5pm, and other programs take place throughout the week. Please check the events calendar and education section for details.
