Jon Mueller: The Future is Unlimited, Always | Arts + Literature Laboratory | Madison Contemporary Arts Center

Jon Mueller: The Future is Unlimited, Always

Percussionist and composer Jon Mueller returns to Madison with his newest project, The Future is Unlimited, Always, on Thursday, November 10, 2022 at 7:30pm, with an opening set by pianist Matt Blair. Tickets are $10 ($8 students/ALL members) online in advance at https://muellerfuture.bpt.me, and $15 at the door for everyone.

Jon Mueller’s The Future is Unlimited, Always is an examination of time, meditation and loss. In this piece, released in 2022 on the Virtues label as a CD/book, the Wisconsin-based percussionist’s usual bombast of repetitive rhythms and textures are replaced with fluid, calm tones, overlaid with otherworldly wails. In live performances of the piece, Mueller employs a variety of gongs, percussion and electronics to create an atmosphere equally as easy to get lost in as it is to be propelled by.

“Mueller’s music is usually completed by the overtones and feedback that arise from the interaction between his playing and the space where it occurs, but for this recording he has drawn those elements into the foreground. Long vocal and metallic tones stretch over subliminally rumbling drums, directing the listener’s attention up and out.” – Bill Meyer, The Wire

"The Future is Unlimited, Always captures Mueller at his most spacious: layers of frequencies and tones that are as engaging as they are mysterious, and capturing more than just audio, but a deeper sense of existence.” – Creaig Dunton, Brainwashed

Jon Mueller

Jon Mueller’s aim has been to move drums, percussion and rhythm from its anticipated backbeat to a central musical focus, something more intuitive and natural than usually imagined. Audiences throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, and the United Kingdom have experienced this idiosyncratic point of view as, paradoxically, both ‘cathartic’ and ‘meditative’. Notable solo performances have taken place at the Guggenheim Museum, New Museum, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Alverno Presents, SXSW, Big Ears Festival, Hopscotch Fest and Witching Hour Festival.

From 2013-15, Mueller created and directed the multi-disciplinary project Death Blues. The project issued four critically acclaimed recordings. Rolling Stone cited non-fiction as one of the ‘20 Best Avant Albums of 2014’. Ensemble, created with multi-instrumentalist William Ryan Fritch, was featured on NPR’s ‘First Listen’.

Outside of his solo work, Mueller has performed and recorded with Mind Over Mirrors... Read More

Matt Blair

Matt Blair is a pianist, composer, and educator who recently returned to Madison, WI. His work draws upon diverse musical traditions such as contemporary classical, electro-acoustic improvisation, free jazz, minimalism, and noise. In addition to his practice as a pianist, he incorporates extended electronic processing of the Fender Rhodes, synthesizers, and the computer in his music.

Since 2018, Matt has been releasing music on his label, Scribbled Fang Records. Recent releases have included Shadow Sets, a collection of compositions for solo piano that was produced by Dave King (The Bad Plus, Happy Apple), Post Rock Lately, the debut record of Collector, an improvising trio featuring Jakob Heinemann on bass and Devin Drobka on drums and electronics, and Flights and Poor Health Good Spirits, both releases by Big Thanks, a Minneapolis-based Trash House trio featuring Miles Allen on saxophone and clarinet and Jack Lussenden on drums. Other recent releases have included After... Read More

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Arts + Literature Laboratory is located at 111 S. Livingston Street #100, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703.

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