Thin Wrist Recordings is proud to present the debut LP by Jacob Wick. A trumpeter and improviser living in Mexico City, over the last 10 years Wick has become known for deconstructing the instrument itself and any expectations of how it 'should' be played. These explorations focus on sound as it relates to specific spaces and in turn the subtle but profound connections they have to emotions and the body. The result is a highly personal music that is both unique and immediate, abstract yet undeniably visceral.

On feel Wick creates two intense side-long improvisations. On the surface they appear to be works of rigorous minimalism; on closer listen they reveal sounds that slowly but constantly shift and evolve. Texture and plosives replace melody and rhythm. Body and breath become indistinguishable from the instrument, the moment is stretched and expanded. Each sound is so closely linked that the player and listener are drawn completely into the present. "feel" is an uncompromising and entirely original album- an intimate sound experience that rewards anyone that chooses to enter.

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Reflections on "feel" by Andrew Choate, The Unwrinkled Ear

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“Important characteristics of the wick include diameter, stiffness, fire-resistance, and tethering.”  - Wikipedia

 

The instrument connects the body to the world, so that is the trumpet for Jacob. It’s a lot of world to connect to, so breath is going to be important. The noise of breath is the fundamental wheeze of our interior monologue sliding monoxide-like across an us of atoms. So there is drama. The fact that breathing is so unconscious and yet voluntary makes breath an ideal instrument to represent primordial dramas. His music uses the sound of breath - not to be confused with actual breath - to coax and coerce and coagulate. Granular harmonics flicker on the edges of the instrument. Or is that the edge of his body? His approach is such that such that such that such that such that such that such thot such thot such thot goes both down and out the throat. Melodic crystals form and splinter at the intersection of his body, sustaining what is called the “attack” (let’s use musical terms) on the mouthpiece. The way Jacob does it, it would be more accurate to call it an embrace. Embrace embouchure embarking embodiment embryonically. These melodic crystals bubble in the spit of noise that the dominant strain of breath-turned-breathing pours out: bonus timbres that flash shards of time-lapsed songs whose hints are better than their amethyst; field recordings of a body in a situation with a tool.

you talk to me like glitter

you talk to me like a keg of silt

you talk to me like fetching

you talk to me like a plumb line

you talk to me like sesame

you talk to me like a shredded gene

you talk to me like unbalance

you talk to me like a mile

you talk to me like airmail

you talk to me like a caulk detour

I listen to you like an animal calculating

I listen to you like a glitt

The sound is personal the way every scream is understandable.

 

- Los Angeles, February 2018