For those unaware, Spit! was composed with links to communication. Communication is shared by all living things, but humans have created unique ways of communicating through developments in technology.

Nicola Miller is interested in both the concreteness of direct communication as well as the abstraction of it through telecommunications such as the telephone, radio waves, telegraphs, etc., especially when thinking about the beginning of these developments.

A similar abstraction of communication is also present in music and she finds it very interesting to think about what is gained and lost in the transmission of a message in both technology and music. It could be observed that music is the opposite of these technological advances since the message is delivered in a spiritual and guttural manner.

Her brand new Nicola Miller’s Living Things sophomore album is entitled Spit! and documents the same band as its predecessor with Miller now leading on Alto Saxophone (and flute on track 3).

1. Spit! [10:17]
2. Telecommunications I [07:37]
3. Telecommunications II [04:42]
4. Telecommunications III [05:22]
5. Where’s the Line? [06:12]
6. Drummers Are Bad [10:31]

On an album that continues to document Nicola Miller’s unique artistry as well as the development of her band, Living Things, they open this wondrous new recording on the spiraling, yet cognitive magnificence of the titular Spit! and then we get the three-part Telecommunications: which opens on the jaunty, yet rhythmically astute I, then brings us the demure elegance of II, culminating on some prowling ruminations that are flourishing within III, the set rounding out on a gentle kind of ragtime-subdued melody within Where’s the Line?, closing on an shrewdly ambient, emotively cultured stance that threads throughout the stoically-charged Drummers Are Bad.

Musicians:
Nicola Miller - Alto Sax/Flute (Track 3)
Frank Gratkowski - Bass Clarinet/Alto Sax (Track 1)
Doug Tielli - Trombone
Nicholas D’Amato - Bass
Nick Fraser - Drums

Official Purchase Link

www.nicolamillersaxplayer.com

Nicola Miller @ Instagram