Full Circle
Label: RKM Music/Kindred
Artist: Graham Haynes
Featuring: Graham Haynes (Cornet/Sounds), Chris Buono (Guitar/Sounds), Leon Gruenbaum (Keys/Sounds/Samchillian), Adam Klipple (Keys), James Hurt (Keys/Sounds), Shahzad Ismaily (Bass/Sounds), Marcus Gilmore (Drums), Guy Licata (Drums), LaTanya Hall (Vocals on “Circle One”)
For more information: rkmmusiccom.bandcamp.com
I had the pleasure to play with Graham off and on from 2005 until I moved to MA in 2006. However, in early 2007 I came back to NJ for these sessions that took place at Bill Laswell’s place. The cast cast and the compositions were amazing. I still listen to this one with reverence for the music and all involved. I also have this record to thank for my obsession with vintage Ampeg Portaflex amps – specifically B-15’s. I used the one the studio owned and never forgot its raunchy awesomeness. It wasn’t until more than ten years later I landed a ’63 B-15NB.
These are not all the tracks. I highly recommend you give this entire album a listen. For instance, ‘First Quadrant is dark dNb at its best thanks to Guy Licata and Shazad Ismaily and ‘Quater Circle’ is a gorgeous, hypnotic piece that aptly exemplifies Graham’s sound and vision. So good.
Turandot Overture and excerpt from Act III
Following charts throughout the making of this record, Graham conducted as he played cornet. For this piece I started out with a crunchy grit thanks to an S.I.B. Vari-Drive and an orange letter Small Stone phaser. When the piece was mental it was a whole different story.
Circle One
This is the lone tune that features a vocalist. We were on our best behavior while LaTanya come in to sing this beautiful piece. I love my tone on this one. It was my ’73 Strat into the fuzz section of a Lovetone Ring Stinger. Set just right you can get some faux trem effects as you hear here.
Standing Before Time
This stands as the toughest piece I had to read down on a recording session. Armed with a Frantone Glacier into that yummy B-15 it was angular triads abound. To add a 21-year-old Marcus Gilmore was not messin’ around while Adam Klipple did some serious work on an unequal tempered piano patch.
Second Quadrant
Based upon “compositional germs” many of the pieces from this two-day session were played live. Like many sessions that find me throwing down the sounds in real-time, it’s nearly impossible to document everything that I use because it’s, well, happening in real time. What I have here is Lovetone Meatball processed chords and laser gun sounds, Frostwave Resonator screams, Love Tone Ring Stinger shrieks, among other outcries. Of course underneath any and all of this type of sonic deviance is some sort of delay courtesy of my collection of vintage Boss delays and a Line 6 DL-4. Check out the sick Samchillian solo at 4:24 from Leon Gruenbaum. Ridiculous stuff.
In the Cage of Grouis Banks
In-between takes throughout the two-day session I would run over to the Death Rig and set up for the next piece – read over charts, tweak new sounds, swap out pedals, tune up, etc. At one point I patched in my trusty Mu-Tron Bi-Phase in the delay pad chain and set up a deep phase that utilized both phasers so I can get the same texture Tony Banks threw down during “In the Cage” on Three Sides Live. As I was doing this a few of the guys on the session came in to add. Unbeknownst to me our engineer James Dellatacoma hit record at the onset and we got it all on tape so to speak. If you’re still trying to figure out the “Grouis” part of the title, that’s a combination of my two older brother’s names, Greg and Louis. They turned me onto Genesis when I was kid and took me to see them in 1983 during the Mama tour. That was my first concert and contact high all in the same night. I was never the same.
