When you’re an experimental composer like Anthony Pateras, you tend to do things like head to the south of France, lock yourself in a convent, and think about nothing but rhythm and sound for 10 days. Which is, coincidentally, what Pateras did at the inception of his Geocidal project.
Of course, you don’t go to all that effort of thinking about music without following up and actually creating said “rhythm” and “sound” in a way that an audience can appreciate — an experimental composer has to eat too you know — so Pateras trekked up to Paris and began recording Geocidal, then moved from place to place, city to city, laying down drums, prepared piano, orchestral percussion, strings, brass, woodwind, and so forth, a new sound for each place until the recording was presumably pretty epic.
What would you do if you were an experimental composer and had just compiled a kick-ass collection of wordless music? Well, you’d probably find someone to sing on it. Pateras hopped over to San Francisco with his swag of sounds and holed himself away for two days with none other than Mike Patton, and there Geocidal was completed.
Patton and Pateras have now adopted the moniker tētēma (which might be Swahili for ‘quiver’) and the Geocidal album, which they promise is “very, very special,” will, according to FACT, be released on December 9 via the long-time friend of both artists, Ipecac Records.
Of course, being the true avant-gardists they are, both Patton and Pateras have other projects on the boil, including the return of Faith No More, Mr. Bungle vinyl reissues, MOMA PS1 appearances, and shows in Berlin with clarinetists. You can attempt to fathom the enormity of both these artist’s happenings via their respective websites.
• Anthony Pateras: http://anthonypateras.com
• Mike Patton: https://www.facebook.com/mikepatton
• Ipecac: http://ipecac.com