Racer Session #194 | The Schimscheimer Family Trio | October 27, 2013
The Schimscheimer Family Trio is made up of three siblings: Kasey, Jon and Michael. While they’ve worked on music together for many years in a variety of formats, this trio marks their debut as a collective group with equal composing and arranging duties.
For their debut recording, the Schimscheimers brought a collection of brand new material and older pieces into the studio. The music runs the gamut from nearly inaudible long tones to grating pointillistic group thrashing. A common thread that runs through all of the pieces is in interest in rhythmic counterpoint, metric modulation and polyrhythm. Most of the pieces explore one or all of these ideas and owe a debt to composers like Milton Babbitt, Conlon Nancarrow and local Oakland bassist and composer, Kim Cass.
For their West Coast release tour, the trio will be playing pieces from the record as well as brand new material. As a break from the longer form pieces on the record, The Schimscheimers are working on putting together sets of short pieces that only cover one or two ideas. This allows the trio to focus less on improvising and more on each composition.
For the Racer Sessions, the Schimscheimers will be leading participants in an evening of short duo or trio improvisations. The goal is to create short “songs” rather than explorative improvisations and to maintain focus and connectivity with your partner.