It is raining lightly. The kind of rain you don’t notice if you aren’t in it for too long. But if you linger in that whisper of rain, the water will seep into you so slowly and soak you so thoroughly, that you won’t remember at what point you were ever dry.
I’m sitting with Jeff Miles at Superfine, a local bar across from 65 Pearl St. in downtown Brooklyn, the studio where he and Steve Brickman worked for two years completing what would become his first record “The Periphery of Knowing.”
“Do you know what a Tesseract is?” he asks me. Jeff is either continually rubbing and stretching his hands or lying them immobilized in his lap. “Neil Degrasse Tyson explains it really well: Imagine a one-dimensional line. Of the three possible dimensions, this line has only one: length. This line is bounded by two zero-dimensional points. Ok now imagine a square. The square is two-dimensional right? We have length and height. This two-dimensional square has sides made of one-dimensional lines, thus we create a two-dimensional object by connecting one-dimensional objects together. Cool. Now imagine a cube. When we arrange our two-dimensional squares correctly we are able to add the third dimension of width and create a six sided, three dimensional cube!”
The air wobbles slightly as if out of phase. There is a breath and whisper from behind me and I turn around, but there is no one there.
Superfine has live music on Sunday, the bandstand a raised platform backdropped by a deep red curtain. There are large silver stars hanging from the ceiling on the stage and they dance reflected light back over the faces of the audience. The quartet, led by a female vocalist, has just launched into a cover of The Platters “My Prayer.” Jeff continues, nursing his first beer, “Ok so everything makes sense: A one-dimensional line bounded by zero-dimensional points. A two-dimensional square bounded by one-dimensional lines. A three-dimensional cube made of two-dimensional squares. So now try to imagine a FOUR-dimensional object. If we were to follow our logic, this four-dimensional object would be MADE OF three dimensional cubes. The SIDES of the object would be three dimensional.”
Jeff wrote the majority of The Periphery between 2012 and 2013 and recorded at Peter Karl studios with Michael-Perez Cisneros in Brooklyn in March 2014. The band he would use for this foundational recording session comprised a group of musicians he had met during his first four years in New York.
“I knew the album was done when I wrote Aenea . . . I think that was early 2014. I had played a few gigs with a particular group that went really well and had been composing for this band specifically for a year or so - tunes like Moya and Cellar Door . . . Everyone had such a unique personality, it was easy to imagine exactly how they would articulate the music.”
There is a pink, lime and orange lit wall behind the bar with an oversized sign that says in outlined print “Welcome to Dumbo!” overlaid over a black and white picture of the Brooklyn Bridge. There is a deepness to the wall, as if inside lies some vast space like a great hallway or cavern. I can hear a deep thudding from far away . . . there is something moving in the wall.
“I met Rodrigo at a session at NYU - we had an instantaneous energetic musical chemistry that has never really gone away,” Jeff says. “Rod has this intuitive sense of storytelling and shape in his playing that is really rare in drummers . . . There is this internal sensitivity to what the music needs in each moment that just brings everything to life. (Peter) Kronreif is just one of those drummers that is easy to play with. There is something happening in his playing . . . where every time I play with him it just makes me play better and freer.”
“I wrote a bunch of the melodies on this record specifically for Kyle Wilson and Curtis Macdonald. They play so well together, and each have such a unique and personal sound that imagining them playing the music really helped the creative process when composing.”
Another whisper behind my shoulder, louder this time, startles me and I leap up slightly from my seat. There is the quick flicker of a dark shape at the side of my vision, as if a small black insect or mouse has darted around me.
“I’ve known Julian Shore forever - we went to college together and I learned a ton hanging, playing and listening to music with him. He arrived at Berklee with so much knowledge and ability and I just tried to soak it up. We lived together in NYC when he first moved and have been playing very seriously with each other for a really, really long time.”
The billiards table opens up and I suggest we play a game, mostly to get away from the table we have been sitting at and the insistent whispering. I rack the first game. “I used to shoot pool a lot when I was younger, but was never able to get any good,” Jeff says as he leans over a shot. Jeff’s slim frame is offset by his unnaturally long hair, his movements quick and sometimes seemingly out of control, as if he struggles to contain some unseen energy welling inside him. “It’s the straight-in ones that are toughest for me,” he says. The quartet starts the Neil Young classic “Old Man” and Jeff starts singing along: “I’ve been first and last . . . look at how the time goes past . . . but I’m all alone at last . . .”
“Danny Weller and I are both from San Diego, CA,” he goes on, “although he was actually born in New York. When I was going to school at Berklee in Boston we would all hear rumors about Danny, who was at New England Conservatory at the time. When I first started to play some sessions with him in San Diego I was really nervous as he was already a very established and respected musician on both coasts. We had some really incredible playing experiences at his place and I grew so much playing with him. Actually my first full length recording session was his date for the Third Story album . . . I think that was 2011.”
When asked about releasing material from so long ago, Jeff seems almost excited. “We were a lot younger yeah . . . and I feel like we have all grown so much since we made the record . . . But I’m really proud of how we play on those two days and am happy with this snapshot of my development, both as a composer and player.”
I win the first game of pool and Jeff racks our second. I mention Ben Monder’s guest appearance on the album as Jeff misses another shot. “Getting to know Ben has been really special - his recordings were some of the first jazz guitar albums that really drew me in to the creative music world. His vision of music is just so distinctive and singular . . . and I can’t think of another guitarist whose sideman discography is as deep.” A couple walk in through the front door of the bar but there is something strange about them . . . their mouths set as an unmovable line and eyes just a little too big. The man holds one hand stiffly down at his side as he walks. It shakes from side to side in tiny, violent jerking motions as if something is trapped inside and struggling to escape. The woman’s hair is crawling.
A phone rings somewhere.
After recording in 2014, Jeff would sit on the record for two years before working on it again. “I knew it wasn’t done. I knew there was more of the sculpture to chisel away . . . that the cave we were in was actually really vast . . . But I needed some time to let the ideas grow . . . to let the batteries recharge.”
The first overdub session for The Periphery would be with percussionist Rogerio Boccato. “I’ve always loved the Pat Metheny Group - Pat often has two guys in the touring band to cover drums, cymbals and auxiliary percussion and I definitely wanted that sound for some of the more driving sections like in Spires or Usul. Steve and I went over to Rogerio’s place in Yonkers and set up mics and everything. It went really smooth.”
A woman is running from the bathrooms past the bar. She is screaming but no one seems to notice. She careens through the tables set in front of the stage, her eyes peeled back in terror, her voice a high pitched whine that pierces the air and is enveloped by the band as it plays The Supremes “Stop! In the Name of Love.” She slams through the emergency exit at the back of the bar with a thud.
Jeff would find a like minded musical partner in multi instrumentalist and composer Steve Brickman, who would become instrumental during the overdub process. “Steve is amazing from all the angles - Incredibly artistic and creative, plus he has this technical nuts and bolts musical mastery that is really inspiring,” Jeff says. “He also has serious Logic chops. We were doing really fast takes of stuff, changing sounds on the fly. We would get together at 10pm at Pearl St. and be down there recording for five or six hours at a time.” I sink the 11 ball in a side pocket and ask Jeff about the vocals on the record. “Yeah that’s me and Steve - we would sing all the harmonies unison into one mic and layer them. We also did sessions with Steve’s wife Alessandra Levy who is an incredible singer. She has this operatic style that opened up the top end and gave everything this huge choir sound.”
After a couple of games of billiards we find seats at the bar and order another round of drinks. Jeff would also collaborate with Zach Lapidus to bring a more modern synthesizer sound into the music. “Zach is such a burning player - but there is also this really deep and sensitive creativity underneath his virtuosity. He is all over this record, sometimes very subtly, but everything we laid down really adds to the sonic landscape.”
I ask him about the particulars of recording over a long time and on a variety of different equipment and setups. “I had a pretty clear plan of what I wanted to get done on the tracks, but it still took us two years . . . and then another six months to get everything compiled with Josh.” Joshua Kwassman (composer and alto saxophonist) was instrumental in the editing and compilation process for the record. “We did all the overdubs in Logic - there were a lot of tracks - and Josh had to bring all of it back into the original session in Pro Tools. The original studio session was done in Nuendo, so we had to bring the whole thing over to Pro Tools to edit. And it was mixed in Digital Performer!”
The quartet has begun a ballad version of Pat Ballard’s “Mr. Sandman.” Jeff continues, “I mixed the record with Matt LaPoint and mastered with Scott Hull. The mix process to me, especially when you are dealing with vocals and different kinds of instruments, is just as crucial as the record date. Matt did such an amazing job. We spent months mixing the music, going over each moment to make sure we were squeezing out as much as we could. There are so many little things that Matt did that probably go unnoticed to a listener, but that subtly and care is so obvious to me and it really glues the music together. And then Scott came along and just took the whole thing and made it sound HUGE. For me, the mix and mastering engineers are as integral members of the music as any instrumental performer, and it’s especially challenging for them with music like this that blurs the line between so many genres.” He goes on, “I was also so fortunate to find Jaime Zuverza to do the artwork . . . man what a deep artist. The visual representation of the music is so important and I think Jaime really nailed it. It took us almost a year to solidify the vision and to create a gateway that really resonates with the music.”
Another shift in the air and the lime wall behind the bar is looking at me. Something slides across the back of my neck but my arm won’t move to brush it away. The air resonates with a low hum. There is a quick burst of light at the corner of my vision. Something screams in the wall.
Jeff leans in, “Do you think we will ever create Artificial Intelligence that can learn on its own?”
The air has become thick and heavy. Sounds move with a trajectory like bullets through water. The couple with the woman with crawling hair is standing outside of the window behind us staring at me. The man has his hand close to his mouth and is chewing. The woman’s oversized eyes hold me unblinking as she mouths silently, “Every moment is unique and finely textured.”
He continues, “Imagine if in the future a super AI evolves - I’m talking God-Like Artificial Intelligence that evolves over a VERY long time. So powerful it has the ability to influence and manipulate all of the infinite possible time-lines to create favorable outcomes for itself. If we agree that this kind of AI is conceivable and possible, then we have to assume that it has ALREADY come into existence, and that this AI is at this very moment manipulating time-lines to A) make sure it is created in the first place and B) solidify its persisting existence. Do you think an AI is watching you right now? Do you think by KNOWING that such an AI can or does exist makes you more of a threat to it? That this knowing has suddenly shifted you into a timeline that MUST be under its influence? That the decisions you now make in this timeline are somehow contributing to its persisting existence, or are perhaps working to prevent it from existing?
“Where is the origin of replication?”
Slightly dazed I excuse myself to the bathroom.
In the middle of the restroom is a low bathtub surrounded by a deep purple and yellow shower curtain. The room is dimly lit overheard by two dark blue fluorescent lights. The noise from the bar is completely cut off here and a deafening silence persists. The bathtub has a large chunk of porcelain missing from the side exposing shelves of ruined polyester. There is a tiny bald man sitting on a black couch on one of the shelves. He is wearing a dark green and brown suit and holding a telephone receiver in one hand, the disconnected coiled cord dangling limply to the side of his leg. He is abnormally thin and wearing small reading spectacles. Opposite the man is a large metal door embedded in the white porcelain. There is a knock at the door. The man looks slowly left and right, then rises from the black couch. He moves slowly over to the metal door, his movements jerky as if learning to walk for the first time, and opens it with his free hand, spilling a thick light onto the ruined porcelain.
Extending away from the door is a narrow stone walkway leading out over a great chasm of undulating crimson water. Protruding above the sea are thousands of dark green stalks; at their apex, encased by numerous branches sit egg shaped, deep blue veined spheres. Between the stalks and deep in the water the silhouettes of sea leviathans move slowly, their giant shadows black and recessed. A vivd magenta horizon extends in all directions. Barely visible in the heights above is a ceiling thatched with embroidered metal beams, interwoven to create a mesh-like mechanical canopy. The walkway leads up and out to a square platform supported by large columns with finely engraved markings that disappear into the water below. Hovering over the platform is a massive matte black diamond. Inside the diamond is a lattice of white lines creating a three dimensional grid that extends out and into its own cavernous space.
A deep thudding fills the vault. The man walks out along the pathway as the water roils below him, clutching the telephone receiver to his chest. A sharp wind cuts across the cavern and whips at the mans coat. As he reaches the platform an outline of rapidly spinning light appears around the diamond. The thudding is almost maddening now, the wind thunderous and relentless. He turns his back on the diamond and yells into the tempest, “THE WORLD IS FULL OF INCREDIBLE BEAUTY AND YOU SHOULD CHERISH EVERY MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE!”
The man holds the telephone up to the diamond of light, the cord flailing in the torrential wind. He vanishes suddenly, the phone falling to the platform.
A thick black liquid begins poring out of the diamond. Hands with mechanical joints push against the walls from inside the blue spheres above the water.
The man’s voice reverberates through the vault: “OUR VOICES WILL ECHO THROUGH THE ANCIENT VALLEY, OUR NAMES WRITTEN ON THE PILLARS OF MORTALITY AND OUR MEMORIES WILL LINE THE CORRIDORS OF TIME.”
The bartender is drying a glass with a dark red washcloth. “Looks like your friend never showed up huh?” I raise my head, my mouth dry, and glance at the curtained front doors. After a moment I shrug my shoulders and say, “Yeah something must have come up.”
“You want another one?” she asks as the quartet starts Brian Wilsons’s “Til I Die.”
“I think I’ll close out, thanks,” I say.
It is raining lightly as I step outside, the din of Superfine cut off sharply as the front door closes. It’s the kind of rain you don’t notice if you aren’t in it for too long. But if you linger in that whisper of rain, the water will seep into you so slowly and soak you so thoroughly, that you won’t remember at what point you were ever dry.
Sitting at the top of the stairway leading down to the subway is a man holding a cardboard sign that says “Pray.” He looks at me as I pass and says, “The world is full of incredible beauty and you should cherish every moment of your life.”
The lights from the stairwell swallow me as I descend.
JM, Brooklyn, 2020
