with a 30 year practice in sonic explorations – including, record manipulation, live tape loops, free improvisation, found and invented instruments - tom recchion is one of the world’s most established and finest experimental artist and musician. based in los angeles, tom recchion has co-founded the legendary music entity lafms (los angeles free music society), collaborated with david toop, christian marclay, oren ambarchi, keiji haino, max eastley, rova, john duncan, smegma (just to name a few). tom recchion plays in extended organ with paul mccarthy, joe potts, fredrik nilsen and mike kelley and occasionally writes for the british music magazine the wire. “sweetly doing nothing” is tom’s first solo release after the critically acclaimed “i love my organ” (birdman, 2004) and will further serve to enhance the artist’s cult status with an unmistakably unique mixture of underwater exotica-tinged minimalism, futuristic jazz, subtlety constructed dronescapes and a vivid orchestral pop sensibility. all the tracks were composed and realized in the 2005. for the first time in his career, tom recchion has used a computer – an apple g4 powerbook with ableton live sequencing software – as the main compositional instrument: “i previously avoided composing music on the laptop for reasons of lo-fi purity and the belief that the ‘mistake’ and the unknown produce the best art. much to my surprise live was the perfect environment to compose in. not only did it work as a great improvisational tool for non-idiomatic composition but it also served my interest in loopy tonal mood music”.
most of the pieces on “sweetly doing nothing” were featured in a performance with visual artist jonathon rosen as part of moca’s visual music exhibition. the performance was held at the redcat, a small theatre part of the disney hall in downtown los angeles dedicated to avant-garde activities. jonathon rosen’s visuals used for the artwork of the package and label. the cd features instrument inventor max eastley on several tracks.