Waves III by Mark O'Leary, Jeff Gauthier, Alex Cline

Waves III is the third installment of a trilogy recorded in California by Mark O'Leary with various luminaries within the LA music scene.

Two other releases, Signs (Fmr records) and On the Shore (Cleanfeed) have all received various modicums of praise.

The trilogy which has Alex Cline and Mark O'Leary as the common denominators, stretches into a proliferation of areas within the great body of contemporary improvised music.

Waves III essentially encompasses a more ambient dimension with laptop generated soundscapes, seascapes and processing, juxtaposed with varying degrees of Eastern music, Japanese music, post ecm, contemporary classical and even elements of some contemporary Americana.

People, Gardens, Seas, Ceremonies and Mountainscapes are the muses.

Ulrich Zwingli, the Religious figure and founder of Zurich, Hindu Kush, Sea, Japanese gardens, in essence disparate, but connected here within the subtle textural fabric of the musical conception proffered.

The praxis, combined with various concepts is the impetus to cultivating the fertile musical terrains, thus a continuation of a sonic/visual/conceptual aesthetic that O'Leary is wishing to portray within an Ambient contextual background.

Oblique themes that unfold into delicate ambient interplays where Alex's symphonic simpatico percussion, Jeff's sensitive violin and the ambient infused guitar intertwined with the various soundscapes structures all coalescing into a kaleidoscope of contemporary narratives, it evolves as ambient washes of sonic waves that ebb and flow on a seascape under an azure sky, Waves is an apt description of the project.

The title Waves III was chosen to differentiate the album from the 1977 Jazz Rock release by Terje Rypdal and Waves II, the 2003 compilation featuring Guy-Man from Daft-Punk.
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Waves III prose

A Kōan in the Art of Zen.
I am Sōtō, I live a simple life of meditation, engaging with nature and I tend to my garden using a zen philosophy.
I have an array of intricate instruments and tools to tend to my extensive garden as I create squiggles in the shirakawa-suna, I savour the contemplation of eating a fresh quinze later, which has just ripened, grown from my own hand.
I have lived many lives. I was there when at the Marburg Colloquy when Ulrich Zwingli was in dispute with Martin Luther.

I was at the foot of the Hindu Kush when the man who would be King walked across the Ishkoman Aghost pass and on to contemplate the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
I was there when Yukio Mishima held his first parade and I assimilated and inculcated his charismatic orations and then visited the Hilltop hotel in Kanda, Tokyo where we would devour shamo-nabe and imbibe on copious amounts of sake, in pensive sooth we would recline on Sofas overlooking the expanse of verdant fastness and engage in laconic dialectics with the main subject of conversation being Raymond Radiguet, in almost identical replication to the bucolic environs of Marne in the Le Bal du Comte d'Orgel and the subtle intricacies of its menage a trois set in the interbellum decadence of the Années folles.
Several paintings in the style of Marc Chagall and Chaïm Soutine in juxtaposition to the great wave of Kanagawa by the great artist of the edo period Hokusai, adorned the walls, indeed upon many occasions one would adopt the sartorial predilection of Soutine's L'Homme au foulard rouge, the ubiquitous Crombies and cashmere red scarves.

I often saunter to Kamakura and from Yuigahama where I am encaptivated by the shore with the enchanting escarpment of Mount Fuji which creates a superlative panoramic background, I meditate and decipher several Kōans my teacher has intimated to me.
We are disciples of the white plum asanga and ascetic acolytes of Daiun Sogaku Harada Kōan curriculum utilizing Shikantaza; the gateless gate, the book of equanimity, the transmission of the lamp.

I return to my pentagonal garden of forking paths and feed the hungry ghost, then, in an ornate, pedantic incense burning ceremony I gather; star anise, cinnamon bark, patchouli and then I place my tetsubin on sandalwood for Chanoyu, my ceremony has survived many centuries from the lineage of Sen no Rikyu.

The student inquires of his master, ''Master, how best shall I savour my tea?''

The master replied ''When one tastes nothing, one has mastered ones taste of tea''.

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