** purchase of album include cover art JPG and 2-panel insert PDF **

Recorded spring, 2007

In winter, 2006, trumpeter/ keyboardist Chris Barrett had the initial Fünf idea of an "exquisite corpse" style of collaboration applied to music. The idea that you can add to a piece without quite knowing what would happen to your contributions or the whole once it left your hands was very exciting, and the thought that your contributions could be whatever your muse handed to you, unrestricted by defined instrumental roles in a band, was quite freeing to all.

The group swelled to include Joe Kowalski (keyboards/ bass), Chuck Pukmel (guitar/ keyboards), Nick Balkin (guitar/ bass) and Marc Beaulieu (drums), and the name Fünf (being German for 'five' and a reference to the Krautrock that Kowalski and Barrett were drawing inspiration from) was selected for the group.

The debut EP found the group defining a style of working where five different sequences of the five members is defined in a 'matrix.' Each member is at a different point in the process for each of the five tracks, starting one track, ending another and somewhere in the middle of the others.

Thus the matrix defines what order each person gets to the piece of music, and each musician is free to do whatever they like to the track -- add elements, remove them, add or remove time, change tempo, etc., as they saw fit. Whoever got the piece last had to figure out how to tie it together and complete it. A piece is not complete until each member has his input on it, but no one is obligated to add anything. (Stopping your additions and sending to the next guy was more often the trick)

It sounds complicated, but it's pretty simple. One piece might be mapped out as such:

Chris - Joe - Nick - Marc - Chuck

Chris would create the initial idea, tracking whatever he likes, and sending it to Joe. Joe receives the tracks, drops them into his recording program, listens, considers and adds to the piece. Then to Nick, Marc and finally to Chuck, who will listen, add and bring it to conclusion.

Each EP was developed in this manner (with one minor exception) -- a matrix providing the map for each piece's development but the musicians' wits and whimsy guiding them and their contributions to the music.

Given the mostly blind (as it were) development of the music, no one but the end person on a piece knew what it sounded like. Sure if you're fourth, you might have a good idea where it's going, but you still don't know for sure what will happen. And forget it if you're first -- a lot of what you did will be unrecognizable. This is part of the fun.

And so the last component of the Fünf process was put into play -- the listening party. At the end of a round, when all the tracks were mixed and ready for listening, the group would gather at one of their houses for some food and drink and to listen to what they had done with a great amount of laughter and fun.

(more on the next EP)