For Binary, Webber looked to the internet for inspiration.
Using websites that turn words into drumbeats, YouTube test channels, and even
her own IP address, she found a constant stream of inspiration for her
compositions. The album's title track was composed using numbers and letters
produced by a random binary digit generator.
"Using material from a pre-defined source like the
internet helps me to be more creative," said Webber. "It keeps me
from falling into routines."
When writing the music for Binary, Webber began each piece
with a small melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, or purely conceptual starting point.
The five "Rectangles" tracks on the album come from the YouTube test
channel "WebDriver Torso," which features ten-second videos of red
and blue rectangles set to high-pitched, microtonal sounds. With a number of
the pieces, she created musical plays-on-words that exude a sense of tension
and release, including "Impulse Purchase," which was written using
Webber's IP address, and "Tug o' War," a transliteration of the game
tug of war into music. Interested in both the complex as well as the playful
aspects of the internet, Webber investigated how the concept of a meme could
manifest in a musical context in the aptly titled "Meme."
Though the internet provided innumerable opportunities for
compositional experimentation, the greatest excitement came from knowing that
she was composing for her SIMPLE Trio bandmates Hollenbeck and Mitchell, two
incredibly adept musicians who share her desire to venture into unexplored
territory.
"Because we've been playing, touring, and recording
together as a band as well as in various projects for several years now, our
musical interaction since the last album has evolved considerably," said
Webber. "John and Matt are fantastic to compose for and improvise with
because they have the ability to play challenging music in a way that feels
relaxed and natural."
Webber's intention in her work is to blur the line between
composed and improvised material, creating frameworks for improvisation that
will challenge the musicians to expand outside the realm of what they normally
play. She is committed to experimenting with the jazz form, pushing her to
challenge conventions as well as her own impulses as an artist. Although Webber
situates herself in the jazz world, her compositional approach is as greatly
influenced by jazz music as it is by new music composers such as Giacinto Scelsi,
Györgi Ligeti, and Gérard Grisey.
Binary finds the SIMPLE Trio expanding and building on what
The New York Times called the "range of the group members: fulminous,
intense collective improvisation" in songs that feel like living things
and lead the audience in different directions on each listen. Binary is yet
another example of the trio's ability to combine "a huge sound, big ideas
and disarming humor into an engagingly avant-garde approach that promises to
continue to gain wider recognition," (Style Weekly, 2016).
Anna Webber is an integral part of a new wave of the
Brooklyn avant-garde jazz scene. A saxophonist and flutist who strives for the
unexpected, she has furthermore consistently proven herself to be a unique and
forward-thinking composer with releases such as 2014's SIMPLE (Skirl Records)
and 2013's Percussive Mechanics.
In addition to the SIMPLE Trio, Webber also leads the septet
Percussive Mechanics with which she has released two albums on Pirouet Records:
Refraction (2014) and Percussive Mechanics (2013). Webber is also featured on
Dan Weiss' album Sixteen: Drummers Suite and on an upcoming release from Jen
Shyu's band Jade Tongue. She is a member of Ohad Talmor's Grand Ensemble; Matt
Mitchell's Sprees; Fabian Almazan's Realm of Possibilities; the Erik Hove
Chamber Ensemble; and a new sextet from Bang on a Can All-Stars member Ken
Thomson; among others. She recently played in the world premiere of Sila: The
Breath of the World by Pulitzer Prize-winner John Luther Adams at Lincoln Center.
In 2015, she was the recipient of a grant from the Shifting
Foundation. In 2014, she won the BMI Foundation Charlie Parker Composition
Prize as a member of the BMI Jazz Composers' Workshop. She is the winner of the
2010 Prix François-Marcaurelle at the OFF Festival of Jazz in Montreal. She has
been awarded grants from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the
Canada Council for the Arts and residencies from the Brush Creek Foundation for
the Arts and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Webber is originally from British
Columbia, Canada.
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