Tag Archives: michael teager

Matt Borghi & Michael Teager’s ‘Convocation’ Out Now!

Convocation, an ambient album I recorded with my friend and partner Matt Borghi, is out now. We recorded this in early 2012 and are very proud of what we captured. Aside from some of Matt’s post-production work, all of the source material was recorded in one take over the course of a single evening. Just the two of us, our instruments and gear, and a recording environment provided by Dan Jaquint‘s The Fort.

The goal this particular evening wasn’t necessarily to record an album, but just to capture some musical dialogue. We had recently gone back to exploring our improvisatory ambient work after many months spent focusing on Teag & PK‘s indie catalogue. Our “rehearsing” consisted of a few conversations and a couple emails.

Below is the official announcement from Slo.Bor Media, the label we’re releasing it through. You’ll be able to find Convocation through all the usual places; more info at the bottom.

Convocation is the work of ambient composer Matt Borghi (www.mattborghi.com) and saxophonist Michael Teager (www.michaelteager.com). Recorded as a series of improvisational structures in spring of 2012, this is the first recording that Borghi and Teager have done together after a half-decade of working together.

With Convocation, Borghi brings in spacious guitar textures to create a harmonic fabric for Teager to lay out his saxophone playing with subtlety and nuance. With a background in classical and jazz saxophone, Teager brings a wide palette of influences to the music. Listeners will hear aspects of Jan Garbarek, John Coltrane and Dave Liebman that’s juxtaposed over Borghi’s pastoral guitar sounds that have more of their timbral origins in the work of Claude Debussy or Ralph Vaughan-Williams than they do other contemporary ambient guitarists.

Convocation, as a whole, aims to create a deep and timbrally interesting listening experience while also bringing together an interesting musical pairing and improvisational process. Saxophone and ambient music have never sounded like this, and Borghi & Teager attribute this to their friendship, their approach to the work and their diverse musical interests.

Buy the hardcopy CD here now, or you can visit online retailers such as Amazon, iTunes, or eMusic to name just a few…

Press for The Fencemen

When you have a few minutes, please check out a nice article published in Chicago’s Jaded in Chicago on The Fencemen, specifically about Times Are Alright. Tyler and Mike offer a peek behind the creative curtains regarding the band and album. I’m proud to be a (small) part of this album and group, so it’s nice to see some press. If you don’t yet have the album, do get a copy via  iTunesAmazoneMusicGooglePlay, or Bandcamp. Also, if you haven’t already, you can read the MT-Headed Blog review here.

(Article link here.)

WGS Album Available for Download

As mentioned in my last update, I contributed some sounds to Brooklyn-based White Gold Scorpio‘s new album Halloween Island. While the album won’t officially be released until 10.31.12, it’s now available for free download here. Do check it out. I didn’t hear the finished product until just the other day, and I really like how it turned out. I’m on two songs – “Throw Myself At You” and “Scare You Like I Do” – but please give the whole thing a listen. You’ll be glad you did.

In other news, The Fencemen stomp through Mac’s Bar in Lansing this Sunday. And I have other shows lined (and lining) up for August and September. You can find those here.

I return to the US at the end of this week. I’ve seen some great live music (Bregenzer Festspiele, Montreux Jazz Festival) and also busked some, but now I’m ready to come home and get back into the studio and on the stage.