New Orleans-based guitarist Chris Alford’s syntax navigates freely between traditional jazz and blues and the avant-garde and the unconventional. Fellow New-Orleans pianist (on his acoustic augmented piano invention, the Infastain Piano), programmer and sound designer William A Thompson IV (aka WATIV) is also a scholar of many traditions but there is little about his musical career that could be called traditional. His work has been profoundly impacted by his one-year tour of duty spent in Baghdad during the Iraq War in 2004.

Together, Alford and Thompson create on their debut album «Overtone Undertow» intimate atmospheres. Their music visits distant territories of contemporary music, folk, electronics, free jazz, noise and blues. This duo focuses on experimenting and exploring aspects of density, a juxtaposition of personal approaches and sonic syntaxes, complementary resonances, balance and adaptability. The Infastain Piano allows Thompson to suggest extended sustain of one or many notes for an unnatural period of time, and he manipulates the piano sounds through digital processing and employs it as a sound generator that produces complex scope of vibration and overtones.

«Overtone Undertow» is a set of eight free-associative free improvisations that focus on cerebral and instant textures, sympathetic strings musings and close and restless pitch searches. All evoke noisy resonances, abstract sonic images, challenging timbres and inquisitive structural forms. The array of extended techniques of Alford and Thompson allows them to suggest a close and unified sonic entity during their sonic explorations.

Eyal Hareuveni 

Chris Alford (nylon string g, resonator g), William Thompson (Infastain p)