Mind's Eye by Trio Atomic

Mind's Eye is the debut album for Trio Atomic. Trio Atomic represents my most recent musical group and includes Will McPeters on bass and Mike Laubach on drums. The band began as a way for me to explore the possibilities of using audio effects with the saxophone, and you’ll hear a lot of those effects throughout our music. Will also uses a lot of audio effects with his bass. When we perform certain songs live, he will loop the bass lines and creates soaring bass solos that reach into the upper register of an electric guitar. At other times, I’ll play the bass line on my saxophone to give him time and space to create melodic ideas. With this multi-layered effects approach, our music can become quite atmospheric, but Mike is always there to hold down the groove. Mike and I both share a deep love for traditional African rhythms and you’ll hear these rhythms used throughout our songs as well.

Like most saxophonists I initially focused on acoustic jazz, but in exploring and studying the wide diversity of jazz styles I began to realize that the term "Jazz" encompasses a variety of music from the early acoustic jazz of New Orleans & big band swing to the electronic exploratory and groove-based music of the 1960s and 1970s. Jazz, especially today, truly encompasses the full spectrum of musical experiences. I have always been interested in electronic based music since I was young. I've always felt like a musical scientist as much as I have a performer and experimenting with electronics and effects allows me to take my explorations ever further. There are a lot of world music elements in the music we play. This comes from my studies as an ethnomusicologist and my explorations of different musical styles from Africa and Asia. I wrote a lot of our songs while studying different traditional music from West Africa. Two of the tracks, Akom and Sikyi, (pronounced See-chee) draw rhythmic elements directly from West African dance rhythms. The electronic aspect of our music creates an additional layer of timbre and texture overtop of these traditional rhythmic patterns.

We hope you enjoy the music,

Jason Squinobal

Jason Squinobal is a saxophonist, composer, creative ethnomusicologist, and professor of music at Virginia Wesleyan University. His music features elements of jazz, electronica, and music from traditional cultures from around the world. With his most recent project, Trio Atomic, Jason is exploring the use of audio effects and music synthesis applied to the saxophone.

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