Interview with Absolute Zero

Absolute Zero are :
Aislinn Quinn : Keyboards and Voice
Enrique Jardines : Bass
Paul Roger : Drums and Percussion

Absolute Zero are an experimental art-rock band from Miami. The music they play is incredibly complex and intricate.


** Paul and you started A.Z. in Florida and then you went up north looking for musicians. Can you please tell us about this surprising decision:
Why did you do it and how did things go?

As you know, the band originated in Gainesville, Florida.
The original setup was guitar, bass and drums. After the guitarist left, we did a search in Florida for a replacement, with little success. After much deliberation, we decided to move to New England because we both had experience living there before, and because there were more musicians there.

New England proved to be difficult at first (and cold!), but there we eventually auditioned New Yorker Aislinn Quinn who is in the present lineup now, making the trip a worthwhile experience.

**How can a band like Absolute Zero survive in a consumer-oriented society and in a country like the United States?
Do you think that the adjective of "Rock in Opposition" still has meaning today and is it applicable to Absolute Zero?

It has been extremely difficult for a band such as ours to survive in this culture. There is a quote by anarchist Alexander Kropotkin with which we resonate: "Must you toil your life long to procure for others all the pleasures of well-being, of knowledge, of art, and keep for yourself only the eternal anxiety as to whether you can get a bit of bread?"

Despite our often difficult survival adventures, we are undaunted in our enthusiasm for what we do and believe. We feel that to stand at the portals of a challenging future with a belief in the failed "isms" of the 20th Century is a mentality based on amnesia and oppression. To participate in this cultural distortion without opposing it would be irresponsible for us. Insofar as "Rock in Opposition" defines those artists opposed to the status quo, musically and/or politically, we feel Absolute Zero resonates with RIO.

** Perhaps the music of Absolute Zero is more European than American.

Upon reflection, we feel we are synthesizing European and American, as well as other world cultures (Indonesian, African, Indian, to name a few) through our individual perspectives. We feel that all our cultural experiences have enriched our musical output. Having said that, your comment about our European influences is quite perceptive, as we indeed have experienced the music of many European performers and composers in the rock and academic areas.

**Maybe, you could tell us the basis of your band anarchist ideology and music.

"A ver un crimen en silencio es cometerlo."
Jose Martí

"To watch a crime in silence is to commit it."
Jose Martí

An empirical analysis of our reality has caused us to refuse to accept it in silence, both musically and politically. We stand in firm opposition to the arrogance of the valuation of capital over human justice and dignity.

We also stand opposed to the suffocating grip of the shortsighted, avaricious commercial music community. Anarchist J.W. Fleming once said, "Anarchism exposes the swindle which the swarm of vermin fatten on." We feel that by being truly authentic about our music and by not compromising in the area of artistic integrity, we instigate a "musical anarchy." We hope that musical anarchy will encourage others to have the strength to reject all musical persons or organizations that demand creative control and ownership rights of any individual's original music or art. We call out for artists to take back the freedom of their art.

The Union of Women for the Defense of Paris, who were participants in the Paris Commune of 1871, wrote: "we consider that the only way to reorganize labor so that the worker enjoys the product of his work is by forming free producers' cooperatives which would run the various industries and share the profits."

They also called for "the abolition of all competition between men and women workers, since their interests are absolutely identical and their solidarity essential to the success of the final and universal strike of Labor against Capital." We feel new music musicians and artists should align non-competitively to ensure that there are non-capitalist based venues to produce, record, perform, or display art.

We feel this may be the only way for the artist to be able to exist authentically. These non-competitive alignments should be geared toward accomplishing specific tasks and should end when the tasks are accomplished, so as to prevent these alignments from reforming into centralized bureaucratic mechanisms resembling the soulless ones that exist today. Alexander Kropotkin better describes this thought when he calls for a free, voluntary, spontaneous and decentralized society, with "absolute home rule and the highest individual freedom." Artists should help each other to protect that freedom by creating individual authentic works of art and/or by supporting specific creative events or venues to exhibit new music and art.

**Musically: You have a perfect mix with the European rock chamber groups, RIO (Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, Magma, 5uu's, Rascal Reporters...), and a few touches of improvisation.... and you are politically very rebellious , the new "Mekanik Destructïw Kommandöh" of the end of the century.
What do you think of this opinion?

We believe in opposing that which attempts to crush aesthetic and cultural freedom. We believe we share this philosophy with the RIO movement. We do use chamber music techniques and improvisation in our realization of this aesthetic and cultural rebellion.

The Magma album Mekanik Destruktïw Kommandöh, of which you speak, is about a prophet who urges mankind to destroy itself so that it can be reunited in death with the universal "State of Grace". We believe in this as a metaphor only. We feel that an individual should reach this "state of grace" in life, by exposing the actions taken by ideologically myopic individuals and organizations that create an enslaved existence (whether it be enslavement to a way of life, a set of thoughts, or an actual unjust physical imprisonment). That is one of the reasons we so strongly feel the need to communicate our music and our ideas. In a more hopeful light, we look at the new century as a rallying point for the catalysis of creative, positive energy, and have the fervent hope that this energy would carry through the rest of the century and onward.

** How has the sound of the band evolved throughout the years?

The original instrumentation for Absolute Zero was guitar, bass, and drums. The music consisted of a mixture of cover tunes (Captain Beefheart, Zappa and others), improvisations, and some original material. After the guitarist left the original lineup, Absolute Zero's music acquired more improvisatory elements. During this time, there was a constant flux of musicians moving in and out of the band, resulting in constantly changing instrumentation. Eventually the band solidified into a trio of bass, drums, and trumpet/keyboards.

This version of the band started to compose only original music. As time progressed, the band felt the new compositions would be complemented by vocals, and began auditions. In 1987, Aislinn joined the band, with the added benefit of her keyboard playing. The trumpet player/keyboardist soon left that version of the band, leaving the group a trio again, which is Absolute Zero's present-day lineup.

The sound of each individual's instrument(s) evolved over time. Aislinn's sound evolved proportionally to her ability to acquire instruments and effects. Thus her vocals evolved from singing in a room with blasting amplifiers and no microphone, to singing solely into mikes processed through numerous electronic effects boxes.

The complexity of her sounds and orchestration increased when she actually acquired an electronic keyboard, which catapulted her into the Galaxy of Imagined Sounds. Paul started out on acoustic drums, but gradually progressed to a Concussion Kingdom of solely electric drums and percussion, due to his desire to openly unleash mayhem with as many sounds as possible at one time.

Simultaneously, Enrique was secretly amassing tools to create his Electronic Dynasty, spurred on by his desire to transform his electric bass into a "bass in opposition" (or "bass au contraire") to conventional ideas about bass playing. The Kingdom, Dynasty and Galaxy collided into a veritable Big Bang of Sound, which is Absolute Zero's sound today.

The music throughout Absolute Zero's total history, in all its formations, has always originated from a non-conformist point of view. Currently, the music of Absolute Zero contains equal amounts of structure and improvisation.

** From your point of view, what can you comment on the current scene on 'progressive' music (in the sense of new music) in the USA?
What kind of impact do the names like Spaceship Eyes, Trap or 5uu's have?

First we would like to define progressive music. In our opinion, the historical term "progressive" describes a genre of music, similar to how Baroque, Classical, Blues/Rock, etc. describe a genre of music. Each of these eras in music contained musicians with adventurous spirit willing to take the first risked step to try something new and advance the musical vocabulary of their time.

Progressive rock artists, e.g., King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, and many others, also embodied that adventurous spirit and did truly advance the lexicon of rock music to a new level of musical complexity.

Although the present day term "progressive" seems to draw from this same lexicon, many bands labeled "progressive" today seem to perform music that harkens back nostalgically to that exciting period, without necessarily advancing the musical vocabulary of the present.

However, we believe that for a band to be truly progressive today it must embrace a 21st century language harmonically, timbrally, melodically, and structurally—even if it initially draws from the past for inspiration. It must make the same kind of leap of faith musically that its pioneering predecessors had to make. This means taking the risk of challenging oneself as well as challenging one's audience (without concern for rejection).

Only in this way can musicians remain authentic in their time and meet the responsibility of opening new artistic horizons. Musicians that emerge from this spirit of music and art truly are "progressive" in a new music sense.

Composer Charles Ives said, "Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful... impersonal tests will show, we believe, that when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep. A narcotic is not always unnecessary, but it is seldom a basis for progress."

Progressive music should not be a narcotic.

As far as the bands that you have mentioned, we have had the privilege to hear the music of 5uu's. It's nice to hear that you've included a band like 5uu's in your progressive terminology, as we agree that they are innovative and adventurous. As for the other two bands, we look forward to acquiring and listening to their music soon. Persons like yourself have been most helpful in supplementing our knowledge of these and other bands considered part of the new, truly progressive U.S. music scene today. (For this we are very grateful.)

**Do you believe that this type of musical manifestation with it's high content of social- cultural commentary can have a place in commercial radio and television?

Commercial radio and television are not about art, but about commerce.

In the 1960s, what enabled a disc jockey (DJ) to play the longer formats of bands like Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, and King Crimson, etc., was the radio format called "FM". For the most part, FM radio shows were controlled by the individual DJ for each specific show. Some of these FM radio stations were actually commercial-free and funded by other sources (e.g., colleges, grants, etc.) This radio freedom allowed DJs to be able to expose and promote much more adventurous music than had been present on AM radio.

As soon as the commercial enterprises funding AM radio recognized that they could derive product profit from the "counter culture" audience of FM radio, they made a concerted effort to superimpose the AM model on the FM model. As funding became more scarce for the FM format radio stations, commercial enterprises, with their voracious appetite for profit and ability to sense an opportunity, choked the life out of FM radio's ability to be a free venue for creativity. One of the ways they did this was to purchase air time on only those stations that exhibited the insipid familiarity of the repetitious cycle of popular tunes. Today most FM radio stations seem to have all the characteristics of AM radio stations of the 1960s. Given this state of affairs, commercial radio is probably not the most likely venue for Absolute Zero.

But we believe there is hope, due to new internet and underground radio stations, which we suspect are on the increase here in the US and abroad (e.g., Jason Ellerbee's "Dreams Wide Awake" internet show in Jacksonville, Florida, USA; Jean Pierre Heymann's show on Radio Libertaire in Paris, France; Chuck U's radio show "No Censorship Radio" in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA; Sebastien Petit's and Jeremy Huylebroeck's "Opposition de Phase" radio show in Lille, France; Joe Paradiso's show "No Commercial Potential" on WZBC in Boston, Massachusetts, USA; and "The Beast and Baker" show [AM radio] in Miami, Florida, USA, and many other non-commercially funded college radio stations, just to name a few ). We support the dedication and courage of these stations. These radio shows have introduced and supported innovative music that is vital for the growth of a new music scene.

Perhaps these represent the next wave of unrestricted radio programming. We feel that only through non-commercially driven, unrestricted broadcasting can new music rise above the desert of corporately controlled music.

Television is a venue even more entrenched in capitalism. Most programs on television cost so much money to make that numerous expensive commercials must be sold to facilitate the making of an unnecessarily exorbitant profit. As a result, most TV programs are quite commercial and impenetrable when it comes to new music and art. There are a few exceptions here in the United States.

There are publicly funded radio and television stations, mostly funded by the public's contributions and grant monies. Even these have recently started selling commercial airtime to corporations, partially due to the US Congress' dismantling of national funding for the arts. There are also local access TV stations in most major cities and towns in the US, the programming for which is often funded and free.

As long as there are persons who are willing to have the conviction and courage to offer creative radio and television programming, we believe that new music and art might be able to prosper once again via these venues.

** What extra-musical interests does the group have?

Art, activism, anarchy, and edible cuisine. Friends, conversation, and the sanitary plumbing necessary to wash our angst away!

** Enrique, what are your principal influences in your style of playing bass?
Jannick Top, maybe?

My first influence and inspiration came while visiting a musician friend of mine. He put some music on the stereo and raised the volume until the music was blaring through his speakers, engulfing the room with sound. I remember being totally mesmerized by the fury and passion of this music. When I asked for the name of the band and piece of music, he told me that it was Cream's album "Wheels of Fire", and the selection was "Spoonful", written by Willie Dixon. I pointed out that what resonated with me most was the powerful gestures of the lower tones of the music.

The more I listened, the more I realized I absolutely needed to know what instrument was being played and the name of the musician. My friend smiled at my now desperate "need to know" and told me that the instrument was a bass guitar and the musician was Jack Bruce. I was hooked, and as a result of that experience I began the journey to be a musician. By the end of that summer I had earned enough money to purchase my first bass, a Gibson EB3. (Coincidentally, after buying the bass, I found out that this was the model of bass that Jack Bruce actually played.)

There are many musicians and composers that have provided inspiration and guidance to my approach to the bass, both from a compositional and performance perspective. By no means is this a complete list of musicians, but individual players like Jack Bruce, Bernard Paganotti, Dave Holland , Miroslav Vitous and 20th century composers like Elliot Carter, Igor Stravinsky and Captain Beefheart have been important in addressing my interests with the bass. As to your reference to Jannick Top, I feel that he is indeed a great player with a powerful personality and tone. Yes, I have listened to his work in Magma and have found it influential.

**What musicians in general ( I mean not only bassists) have influenced you and who do you actually listen to?

The first thing that comes to mind is a quote from composer John Cage: "When I wish as now to tell of critical incidents, persons, and events that have influenced my life and work, the true answer is all of the incidents were critical, all of the people influenced me, everything that happened and that is still happening influences me."

Having said that, I have had the privilege of attending many memorable concerts, including performances by Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Captain Beefheart, B.B. King, Robert Wyatt, Charles Mingus, Tony Williams, The Who, McCoy Tyner, and Henry Cow.

The music of composers and/or players like Igor Stravinsky, Edgar Varese, Elliott Carter, Iannis Xenakis, Krzyztof Penderecki, Erik Satie, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Albert King, King Crimson (early 70s), Cecil Taylor, and Hatfield and the North (to name a few) have been equally important in my ongoing musical education. Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention my two musical colleagues and friends Aislinn Quinn and Paul Roger of Absolute Zero, for whom I have a profound respect as musicians and persons. Their endless devotion, courage and passion for music have been both inspirational and educational in my musical awakening and in overcoming life's challenges.

I continue to listen to as much music as possible. Lately, I have been resurrecting my interest in music from Spain, Latin America, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, The Latin Playboys, Henry Threadgill, John Coltrane, Arnold Shoenberg, and Gyorgy Ligeti, to name a few.

There is an honesty and urgency in the music of all the above musicians that I find inspirational.

It is the totality of these musical experiences, and others too numerous to mention, that have been invaluable in my search for my own musical identity. Having said that, the gritty task to find and realize one's own inner voice is really what counts. In my opinion, it is the courage to resolve the dialectic of all your influences with your own personal voice that creates innovative music that reaches beyond labels.

**Do you feel that your compositions of melodies and textures have equal importance?
What about rhythm?

Platonically, if music could exist without rhythm, it would be only singular sound gestures (melodies), textures (timbres) and layers of sound gestures (harmonies). In a practical reality, music cannot exist without rhythm. Even music that seems arrhythmic has an internal "pulse", and this pulse becomes the rhythm. Rhythm is about events happening in time and the psychological perception of those events during that time.

"Percussion is exemplified by the very next sound you actually hear wherever you are."
John Cage

Rhythm is the heartbeat of music and makes it more poignant. Because there is rhythm throughout nature, it is an intrinsic part of life itself. For example, one's own body harbors a cacophony of rhythms, some of which are absolutely necessary to survive. Breathing, blinking, walking, speaking, coughing, snoring, the frequencies of the alpha waves of the brain, etc. —each has an individual rhythm, and together as a whole they comprise a rhythmic symphony. The pulse of the very lifeblood that courses through the veins, conducted by the heart, is a pure example of the rhythm of nature. To have music without that integral part of life renders it, in effect, lifeless.

Because of the pulse that rhythm gives music, it can make the seemingly immovable move. Each listener has a rhythmic resonant key to the soul that will move that person to an action, anything from moving the body, to changing a point of view. It is rare that a person can listen to a highly rhythmic piece without tapping a foot. Because of this, Absolute Zero cannot help but place the same importance on rhythm as it does on melody, harmony, and timbre when composing music.

**Describe for us your creative focus and drive to compose.
Is there a an unusual process that you follow?

Our creative focus to compose music comes from the fact that it is essential to our existence.

We feel focus is the clarity of intent to hear one's inner voice. Focus by itself, however, does not create music. Realizing this inner voice requires duende. This combining of focus and duende is paramount to existentializing music from the gut and soul.

Process-wise, this focus can be directed through inspirational moments during which a composition evolves from an improvisation session. Alternatively, an idea or concept may just require many hours of toil to coax and cultivate an inspirational gesture into existence. We have begun compositions staring at a blank piece of paper onto which we must scrawl the notes in our imaginations, or by improvising together, or by standing in front of a piece of technology from which we must coax a sound.

In terms of the politics of the compositional process, each member of the group has significant and equally weighted input into the process. There isn't a note, a sound, a lyric, etc. that goes into any of our music without a unanimous consent from all band members. No one person can override another. This egalitarian mandate, combined with the intensity each musician feels for the music, can create an environment described in a previous interview: "As collectively composed music organically grows in the rehearsal room, a highly spirited discussion over each note usually ensues. After much bloodletting, whatever shreds of music survive are then kept for posterity."

**Does improvisation play a critical point in your compositional process?

Improvisation holds a special interest for us. John Cage talks about "A music that transports the listener to the moment where he is." We think there is a musical electricity created by improvisation that creates a desire in the listener and performer to interact more intensely with the music and with "the moment where he is." A listener can hear a recorded non-improvised piece on the radio, and later go to see that piece performed in concert. Except for some interpretive energy, the piece heard in that concert exists only as a familiar confirmation of the listener's expectation. In effect, instead of the listener being "where he is", the listener is, in effect, existing in his perceived future, anticipating the next known note of the music.

Improvised music, especially live improvised music, has a tension that screams for connection with some sort of immediate transcendent reality. This tension occurs between the players, as well as between the players and the audience. For this reason, we very much enjoy improvisation and have used it as a compositional technique.

"My favorite music is the music I haven't yet heard."
John Cage

**How do you see the new music scene?

Our perception about new music is mostly based on our experiences in the U.S. We perceive the music scene here (except for a few bright spots) to be quite difficult. There are fewer and fewer places to play new music, there are more and more places requiring musicians to pay to play, and the economic reality surrounding the realization of new music projects can be extremely overwhelming.

Because we as a society are getting more passive about our cultural enrichment due to the dependence on home entertainment technology, we are leaving our "cultural" education in the hands of the merchandisers. Even the people funding music for music's sake are becoming more and more risk-averse; they often choose to support pleasant music that doesn't hurt (i.e., challenge) the listener's ears and is familiar (i.e., opiate). New music is experimental and by its very nature unfamiliar and challenging.

The cause of this problem is not restricted to audiences or corporations only. Musicians themselves can also be averse to taking risks and reluctant to push the experimental boundaries of their art. "How prejudiced many musicians seem to be against accepting anything that has not been officially recognized.... by a kind of professional-rubberstamping....They seem held up by a kind of fear that their ears may be hurt, a kind of emasculation...that some marketable value may be lost....Whenever music passes that experimental stage, it has started on its way down...every great inspiration is but an experiment..."
Charles Ives

A new music audience is an integral part of the new music scene, but the dialogue between the new music artist and its audience has been to date successfully obfuscated, due to a passive audience allowing the corporate music mechanism to successfully narrow the field of choice in the area of art. New music audiences and artists need to search for each other, by any means necessary. This can be done through searching the internet, or through supporting live concerts, or by listening to radio stations actively supporting new music, etc.

A positive aspect of the brutal reality of lack of music industry support for the new music scene is that it seems to give new music artists a guerrilla-like mentality to survive. New music artists seem more determined to will their musical projects into existence. They are able to insist on control over their own music, and are also able to circumvent the influence of arrogant capital over their creative process.

Also on the positive side, we have had the pleasure of developing a camaraderie with some very positive forces in the new music scene throughout the world. These forces energize the new music scene, dismantle the control of the commercial music infrastructure, and provide the spiritual support necessary for today's "new music" creator to continue to realize art. Toni Cade Bambara, writer, states that "It is the responsibility of the revolutionary artist to make revolution irresistible." We believe that these supportive forces indeed help to make artistic revolution irresistible.

**Do you believe that music will take more risks and be more innovative in the next 10 years?

For us, innovation is the brilliant force that creates inspired change, and risk is about the will and courage of the artist to create new art. As long as there are artists that are willing to take risks with their music, there will always be innovation.

Having said that, we feel, in the next 10 years, most of the risk taking and innovation affecting music will take place in the technological realm. We might predict some technological changes we see coming. We envision the death of effects boxes as we know them. We see each individual musician with a computer workstation in a rack.

The computer would contain a computerized mixer, with all effects existing as plug-ins to the mixer channels. All changes to the mixer or the effects would be triggerable in real time. All connections between effects, and between the mixer and effects, would be programmable, in flowchart form. Changes to these connections would also be triggerable in real time.

Some of this technology can already be seen in the computer recording/mixing programs available. But none are as versatile and real-time as the imagined workstation above. This workstation concept, we feel, would bring effects into a more reasonable price range, (as there would be no hardware involved) and would provide the versatility needed to create an unfathomable amount of sounds.

It will also afford the ability to improvise every aspect of the music, as a musician could trigger almost any sampled sound or effects change in any manner they wished, without changing cables or buying more boxes. The only space that would have to be managed is the virtual space of the computer and its memory. In effect, these changes will expand the vocabulary of music beyond all forms of known music. There would be very few limits.

** What is your opinion as to the music of the next century?
How should it be?

"I once asked Arragon, the historian, how history was written. He said, 'You have to invent it.'"
John Cage

Music of the next century has to start in the present, as it is precisely the now that determines the future. In other words, the future does not exist until it has been willed into existence by the artist in the artist's present. As soon as an artist realizes a creative process, via spoken or written word or through a piece of art, the creation exists in the present, even if it is something that is not considered "valid" by society until many years later. Because the judgment of a present artist's realization as to its validity in the future really happens in retrospect to its occurrence, all we can do as artists is create art in the present and invent the future as we do so. Therefore, our opinion as to the music of the next century is that it is being written now.

Politically speaking, even though we may visualize a recognition by society of a radical realization of music in the future, this visualization alone will not ensure this music's ability to survive, now or through the ages. As artists, we must creatively and effectively rise to the challenge presented by the socio-political and economic factors (e.g., struggle for control and profit margins by the "purveyors" of music, of whom we have spoken before) that have more than once separated the artist from his or her creative process.

At present, we can speculate that music will sound different due to technological changes and different approaches to the composition process, but the underlying controlling forces of art will unfortunately remain the same unless they are challenged in the present. As far as how music should be, music of the present and future should be free and clear of all of society's restrictions with the openness for composers to create at will.

"There is no must in art, because art is free."
Vasily Kandinsky

** Is your music a search for answers to questions like the previous question?

Our music is a search for questions and answers, and the dialogue between the two.

**At this point in your musical career you have expanded your stylistic frontiers in ways of which many could only dream.
What other stylistic camps await the sonic explorations of A Z?

Thank you for your kind comment. Although we feel that our explorations have just begun, we might risk naming a few anticipated "sonic explorations":

Microtonal music is an area that we believe has not yet realized itself fully in "western" music. For example, Harry Partch and his ensemble attempted to catalogue and create microtonal music, but he and his ensemble seem to be perceived as a phenomenon only, due in part to the music being linked to his specially tuned instruments, and in part due to microtonality's difficulty and its fundamental dismantling of the whole comfortable structure of tempered music.

We think many different kinds of structures will eventually arise from this area of music, probably as electronic instruments become faster, contain more memory, and become more conveniently programmable (yes, we think that microtonal music will accelerate through electronic instruments faster than it has been able to through acoustic instruments). A very talented U.S. composer who we enjoy very much and who does a lot of exploration of microtonal music on fretless guitar is a fellow named Dan Stearns.

There will definitely be more sampled music in the future. We as a group are committed to the creation of our own personal sounds and will continue to explore this area for as long as it provides interesting and challenging material for us.

We are also committed to eventually creating multimedia pieces with not only real-time aural improvisation, but also real-time visual improvisation created using triggers to initiate motions of figures or images on a computer or video screen (or even mechanical events on a stage). We believe that the technology is fast approaching the ability and cost for the individual artist to perform pieces such as these. A multimedia composer who has dealt extensively and powerfully in this area is Laurie Anderson. We have also seen a piece from NY that involved live music acting as an effects filter to things happening on live video. We expect to see more of this approach to art in the future.

** Will there be finally a full length A.Z. CD?

We hope there will be many! Right now we have composed music for two full length CDs and are presently composing a third .

** Does A.Z play out with a lot of frequency? Do you have any plans to tour ?

Because we are currently concentrating on our recording projects, we have less time to focus on playing out. But we definitely plan to play concerts as we have have in the past, and are looking forward to supporting our CDs with live performances once they are released.

** Please send a message to La Caja and your contact information for those who are interested.

We appreciate very much and are humbled by La Caja readership's interest and support, and feel inspired by the incredibly thoughtful questions proffered by Jose Manuel of La Caja de Musica. He is truly not sitting comfortably accepting the status quo, but causing all of us to evolve by asking the right challenging questions. Our profoundest thanks, Jose.

Here is our contact information:
Absolute Zero
PO Box 144737
Coral Gables, Florida 33114 USA
(305) 626-3865

WEBSITE : http://www.absolute-zero.net

Thanks to Margen and La Caja de Musica for this interview.
The contributing writers were: Rafa Dorado (Margen ) Jose Manuel Inesta ( La Caja de Musica).

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