Introducing Mad Myth Science, the next generation of Chicago's powerful creative music scene

Mad Myth Science is the creative convergence of Molly Jones, Julian Otis, Wilson Tanner Smith, and Ben Zucker. All four musicians have a bevy of multi-disciplinary achievements to their names — while working together, they put these into service of a blend of shapechanging acoustic group sounds characteristic of many of Chicago’s notable experimental music scenes. The AACM’s advances in improvised music are perhaps the most obvious touchstone for the group’s dynamic of chamber-music & free improvisation hybridity: the considerate use of space and generous inclusion of all kinds of made sounds recognizable in the work of Roscoe Mitchell or Muhal Richard Abrams, but made in and for the 21st century, where genre and background gives way to performance of all kinds of modes of intensities. Correspondingly, the group’s name alludes to the expansive philosophy of creative music pioneer Sun Ra, in part—where any “mad science” is concerned, the mixtures of genres, instruments, and media at play in their performances are hardly villainous, but certainly aspire to a level of unbound. And the circumstances in which the band forged their group identity — over Skype and Zoom connections as a promising collaboration was thrown off by the onset COVID-19 — involved their own kinds of madness and science.

Though the members of Mad Myth Science all had shared background and experience performing together, attuning to each other via software brought the necessary attention and sensitivity to a new level, as well as the ability to move in and out of apparently cohesive interactions.

Before “We Instruments” melts away with precision under Otis’ final delivery, it sets forth with blazing layers of perpetual motion. Elsewhere, such as in the “Meditations”, all players reach an equal level of delicacy in their final exchanges. Small percussion and subtle live electronics give the occasional uncanny hint to the proceedings. Myth aims to explain, or at its very least (and best?) generates aspirations towards awareness, resilience, and wonder. The myths we make about improvisation, or about ourselves, are part of what still give our present existence a sense of itself. This was how Mad Myth Science sustained itself for a long time, and its approach only kaleidoscoped when the opportunity to play live became possible again. Online, offline, as “new music” or “jazz”, as sound in itself or augmented through movement and performance, the group’s shows have been potent experiences across Chicago. This album is a snapshot of that experience — select edits of hours of playing in the renowned Experimental Sound Studio. It shows part of what makes the group what it is: the invocations, surfaces, energies, and contemplations that reach us as sounds; but like any experiment, a catalyst to bring all involved into something further.

Mad Myth Science was supported by New Music USA’s Creator Development Fund in 2022-23.