2-LP SET

On the provocative Omnisphere, recorded live in 2015, Medeski Martin & Wood venture into contemporary classical music, with the help of 20-piece chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound. The ambitious program offers a mix of compositions penned by musicians from both ensembles, starting with the suite-like “Kid Tao Mammal (unworldliness weirdo),” by AWS percussionist Payton MacDonald. Leapfrogging brass and woodwind lines are followed by John Medeski’s trippy electric-piano declarations, wide-open chiming, violin and clarinet statements intermingled with bassist Chris Wood’s upright interjections, Billy Martin’s extended trap-kit buildup, and finally a furious, rapidly intensifying statement of the initial theme.

PERSONNEL:

• JOHN MEDESKI, piano and keyboards
• BILLY MARTIN, percussion
• CHRIS WODD, bass

• Erin Lesser, flutes
• Christa Robinson, oboe
• Hideaki Aomori, clarinet
• Elisabeth Stimpert, bass clarinets
• Michael Harley, bassoon
• Matt Marks, horn
• Jason Price, trumpet
• Michael Clayville, trombone
• John Orfe, piano
• Chris Thompson, percussion
• Matt Smallcomb, percussion
• Courtney Orlando, violin
• Caleb Burhans, violin
• Isabel Hagen, viola
• Stefan Freund, cello
• Miles Brown, bass
• Alan Pierson, conductor and Artistic Director

Live at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts in Denver, CO on February 5, 2015.

SIDE A:

• 1. Kid Tao Mammal (unworldliness Weirdo)
• 2. Anonymous Skulls

SIDE B

• 01. Coral Sea
• 02. Oh Ye Of Little Faith... (Do You Know Where Your Children Are?)

SIDE C

• 01. Eye Of Ra

SIDE D

• 01. Northern Lights
• 02. End Of World Party (Just In Case)