A non-profit organization designed to create a vibrant Pittsburgh music collective that encourages original, unique, and otherwise novel music. Improvisation is strongly encouraged, authenticity is a prerequisite.
Yow very Kool .. Brings to mind Ventures in Space. I need to get into my flying car to bop over to the intergalactic burger joint across the the 5th galaxy. Great work lads.
Ordered a Bridge 6, waited patiently for 3 weeks for it to ship from Australia. Come to find out there are bugs in the implementation of the flexiports for external aux switches, been that way for months, and they are now gone on vacation until January, so there is no help or assistance. Weak sauce. Should have ordered a Morningstar to begin with, what a disappointment.
Story time. So the background on this is really cool and forms a distinct chapter in my history as a musician. After several years of working/producing independently at Sun Room studio (2015-2020), my wife and I packed up and moved across town. For almost 2 years all of my instruments were packed up and in storage. Thankfully, In late 2021 and 2022 I was getting back up on my feet, meeting new friends and neighbors, and working on launching a new music project in a jazz/jungle/jam band format with written structures to improvise on. There we established Rhythmic Graffiti - a core trio of Drums, Bass, and Keyboards, and we invited all kinds of people to play with us. One of those people turned out to be Sangita Sakshatkara on guitar, from 1 mile away, over the hill. When Sangita showed up at my basement with a ring mod pedal, arpeggiator, and a back catalog of hyper speed jazz tunes for us to try out, I knew that this was going to turn into something else for me. Incidentally, Sangita had been searching for a drummer with more or less my exact style - jazz improv mixed with fast breakbeats and electronic production values. In improvisational music no one has anything planned out too well, you just dive in and go for it, using intuition and nonverbal communication to sync up and do something fresh, unique, special. It's so much fun. The stars were aligned just right. The two of us decided to book a weekend together at Pittsburgh Undefined studio and see what we could cook up together. When the hot and muggy August day came, I loaded in my drums and began setting everything up. There was a strange loop playing through the guitar amp as Sangita tweaked all of the recording gear. Then, picked up the guitar and clicked on the loop pedal. What you hear in this video is the first few moments of our jam session - two passionate players colliding in an explosively creative 2 day session. From strangers to close friends in a split second. This felt extremely new, raw, and unpredictable. No one knew what was going to happen. But we weren't nervous. What ended up coming out was what I believe to be years of pent up creative expression. Years of desire to connect with someone else on a higher level musically. To do something real and make a statement of artistic intent and presence. Shutting out the problems of the world and making our own world of sound. When it was all over, I knew we had captured a lot of cool moments. A week later when we sat down together to mix audio and select clips of improvisations to consider releasing as social media posts and RU-vid videos, we heard THIS. And I about lost my mind with Joy. I didn't remember playing this. I didn't realize the extent of the personal quality of what we had done. The guitar riffs and solo Sangita came up with were so different and so much more "American" than I could have ever guessed. It just felt so real and so good to hear. At that point the whisky started flowing and we just partied together while listening back to everything we created - 15 distinct improvisations made up on the spot and sounding great. Jeez! So, over a year has passed since this session, and life has gotten back in the way. But we've had this in our pocket the whole time. I am so grateful to Sangita and Pittsburgh Undefined for giving me the platform and time to do something like this. After that mixing session / party I let Sangita know that I didn't mind if this was on the back burner and took a while for us to start releasing. It was one of the funnest, and most satisfying recordings I've ever had the pleasure of being a part of. Timeless. We look forward to sharing more in the future. We haven't even scratched the surface yet. Sangita has a one of a kind style/sound and I like to think that I helped bring it to life. We also would like to play live for everyone someday. But the reality is that we are both fathers and have busy lives. Unfortunately we've only been able to play together one time since this session. Sometimes, especially as we get older, life gets extremely difficult with injuries, job responsibilities, other hobbies/interests etc. Sangita also has a lot of other awesome projects going, like Enso Orchestra. Needless to say, aut0mat1c is not at all commercially viable and is a passion project that we would have to support 100%. I'm very thankful for the opportunity to present aut0mat1c to the world, no matter how big or small. Thank you for watching, and keep an eye out for more from Pittsburgh Undefined, Sangita Sakshatkara, and myself - Mike Rosswog.
We’ve been sitting on this for a while! Sangita and I managed to crank out over 15 unique improvisations over a two session weekend. It was the second time we had ever been in the same room together, first time improvising and playing off of each other specifically. Watch out for more releases and hopefully a live performance in 2023!
I grew up listening to fusion, Brand X, Passport, Weather Report, Mahavishnu, and late 60s Miles. So.. definitely! Phil Collins is a way better musician than most folks realize.
