West ZooOpolis Official Release

My new album, West ZooOpolis, featuring Marco Minnemann is now available for you at Abstract Logix! To recap, this album was written over a tremendous 51-minute drum performance Marco recorded and then invited me and several other composers to compose around. The complexity of the drums made analyzing Stravinsky and Boulez scores at graduate school seem almost easy by comparison. However, Marco’s profoundly inspiring performance kept my compositions rolling!

Many thanks to those of you who have already purchased West ZooOpolis during the pre-sale phase to help it already become the top seller at Abstract Logix. Additionaly, thanks to the listeners of the preliminary digital download and all your supportive emails.

Thanks to radio hosts, Dick Heath in the UK, Randy Allar of the Cleveland based “Fusion Show” and Tom Gagliardi of the Philadelphia based “Gagliarchives” show for quickly bringing such a large portion of the album to your listeners. Additional thanks to Randy Allar for such an extensive on air interview as well. Thanks to writer Angelo Hulshout for introducing the album to the Prog Archives crowd.

I would like to thank Kevin Freeby for his fantastic bass playing and commitment to West ZooOpolis. His unique sound helps give the varied elements of this music a unifying sound and identity. Additional thanks go out to Chris Taylor for rolling up his sleeves and joining me on guitars, keyboards and co-writing on the two tracks “Three Trains to Tennessee” and “Mayor Ass.” Also thanks to big DeGenaro for a twisted fretless solo at the end of “Viking Rats.”

Additional thanks go to all the makers of the gear who have supported me to include but not be limited to: Ernie Ball Musicman and Suhr guitars, Deering Banjos, Egnater amplifiers, DiMarzio pickups, Port City cabinets, Evidence Audio cables, Tonefreak and XTS pedals, Sound Sculpture audio routing matrixes, and Fractal Audio Systems (makers of the Axe FX). Also, thanks to Victor Rocha for the revolving door of guitar loans!

Lastly, please don’t forget to go check out Trey Gunn’s CD, Modulator, as well as Alex Machacek’s CD 24 Tales which were composed around Marco’s drum performance. Marco also put together an album of his own! We are still waiting for Mike Keneally and Phi Yen-Zek to release their versions as well. I have heard some in full and just parts of others, but what I can tell you is that the creativity and unique voices of each composer and the wealth of opportunities provided by Marco’s beautiful playing give you several highly distinct albums in this historically unprecedented project. So, last but not least, many thanks to Marco!

Best wishes,

John Czajkowski

Czajkowski-Minneman Album: West ZooOpolis and More

I have completed my new album with drummer Marco Minnemann entitled “West ZooOpolis.” It is one of six full albums on in the larger Normalizer 2 project due out on Abstract Logix this year. To recap: Normalizer 2 is a multi-composer project wherein Mike Keneally (Zappa, Vai), Trey Gunn (King Crimson), Alex Machacek (UKZ, Planet X), Phi Yan-Zek and German electronic composer Mario Brinkman and I have all composed and recorded individual albums around Marco’s tremendous 52-minute recorded drum performance. Trey is now organizing our compilation CD that will feature representative segments from each composer’s album and this is slated for the first Spring release on Abstract Logix. Following this, the individual albums will release approximately one per month with the order still to be determined. I have also had the pleasure of helping Mike Keneally record his contribution to the set, “Evidence of Humanity,” at my studio, and we hope to wrap it all up by this weekend. I will pass on more information and clips from “West ZooOpolis” as we move into the release window.

On another channel...of course I have also been preparing material that may help start the next Hectic Watermelon album, but still sense it heading into several sonic directions. So, hopefully, a vision of the future will unfold. Additionally, Mike Keneally and I would like to do some material together this year, so I can’t wait to see what kind of mischief we’ll get into! Occasionally, I post little clips over at my Soundclick site primarily for my beloved endorsers such as Ernie Ball, Fractal Audio, DiMarzio, Egnater, Tonefreak, Port City and so on. However, occasionally I will post things that could be new HWM sketches as well. Occasionally, I’ll post material sent or bound for a TV producer I work with. They cover CNN, MTV and several other network and cable clients, so this is very staid and unobtrusive because, well, that’s how they like it in TV welt. You never know, sometimes they are pretty fun.

As always, HWM and I thank you for your support,

John