Jon Mueller

Jon Mueller : Duality

Since studying singing with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela in 2018, Jon Mueller has applied the lessons he learned in the sessions to his work with drums and percussion. Initially revealed in his gong and voice project Canto, and later in his percussion-only Afterlife Cartoons project, Mueller has pursued the idea that typical grand gestures in drumming were not the only means to create an impact with the instrument, but that even the slightest movements could create a dynamic and complex listening experience.

Duality, using just two small tom drums and large gong, is less a specific piece than it is an ongoing method of practice. Through consistent pulse rhythms, the gong and drums create overtones, which shift naturally and intentionally through slow movements around the surface of each instrument. Each session is improvised within this method of playing, aiming to create tones that move and shift over a long course of time, revealing the illusion of voices singing and other sonic phenomena.

Jon Mueller has performed solo throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and the United Kingdom at venues and festivals such as Guggenheim Museum, New Museum, Issue Project Room, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Non Event, Café Oto, Columbia Experimental Music Festival, SXSW, Feed Me Weird Things, Big Ears Festival, Arnolfini Arts, Hopscotch Fest and Witching Hour Festival. His solo recordings have been released by labels such as Table of the Elements, Type Recordings, Important Records, Taiga Records, SIGE Records, and American Dreams.

Mueller has also performed and recorded with the groups Who is the Witness? (with Tim Kinsella, Jenny Pulse and Whitney Johnson), Push for Night, Mind Over Mirrors, Mamiffer, Volcano Choir, Collections of Colonies of Bees and Pele, and has collaborated with Olivia Block, Aaron Turner, Asmus Tietchens, Z’EV, Rhys Chatham, Jarboe, James Plotkin, Duane Pitre, and Jonathan Kane.

“The music registers as a vibrating, moving force rather than a mere drum solo.” – The Wire

“…music that suggests gaping, unfathomable voids and distant threats.” – The New York Times

“…absolutely transcendent.” – Foxy Digitalis