Nothing is Sacred

German touch-guitarist Markus Reuter (Stick Men) releases three albums in October.

Pure genius: exposed and documented. It's jazz; but sort of "anti-jazz," too. It's progressive, yet clearly supersedes any pre-existing templates or traditional standards. It's avant-garde, while soaring above and beyond typical confines, there, as well. And it's 'free jazz,' but with preconceived structure of sorts.

One of the 21st century's most joyously unconventional, innovative musicians and composers, Markus Reuter, under the auspices of MoonJune Records, is pleased to offer the initial Oculus project, "Nothing Is Sacred": an album which hails as one of the most brilliant, spellbinding and 'immediately essential' ensemble works in decades. Joined by a stellar cast - featuring legendary King Crimson alumnus, violinist/keyboardist, David Cross; the extraordinary veteran timekeeper Asaf Sirkis, and fretless bass virtuoso (and renowned producer) Fabio Trentini; with contributions from fellow guitar pioneer, Mark Wingfield, and the iconic West Coast USA ambient pioneer, keyboardist Robert Rich - Markus employs a more premeditated, disciplined, yet radically divergent approach to group performance on this mon- umental session. In the process, new avenues for even more profound levels of musical communication are ventured.

"This is insane music. I used a compositional system that basically disallowed the musicians to play intuitively. They had to follow rules which served to create really strange melodies and harmonies," Markus revealed. "In the back of my mind, I wanted to create something as fundamentally radical as was (Miles Davis') 'Bitches Brew,' back in the day ... sort of an improvising 'big band' - where each player is on their own when it comes to specific pitches, but connected in terms of a common rhythmic grid and unified texture."

Five extended compositions recorded live in the studio (at the 4th annual MoonJune gathering, at La Casa Murada, Catalunya, Spain), every song is a mesmerizing journey, weaving seamlessly between various coarse and fine textures, where moments of tranquil harmony magically morph into spells of delightfully chaotic dissonance, stampeding one minute, and tip-toeing, the next.