Spike Mason's OXIMETRIC

'a blend of beauty and tension'

Spike has been a PhD candidate at UTAS for the past four years researching his original Oximetric music. The oximetric concept involves the execution of a largely unfamiliar performance practice within jazz ensemble music. Each musician within the ensemble plays melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic material, either composed or improvised, within their own unrelated pulse.

The musicians, although playing at the same time, do not adhere to a shared pulse, time signature, or groove. Each of the pulses are played with the goal to maintain a sense of the individual. There is no need for them to start or finish together. The pulses are not rhythmic subdivisions of each other or related mathematically. They are separate voices that create a synergy by being sounded together in the same sonic space, and sharing a common intent, or mood.

The oximetric concept incorporates archetypal rhythms that are expanded and compounded by each of the performers in the ensemble at their discretion. The rhythms are to be executed ‘phrasically’ – so that each melodic or rhythmic segment is not strict but flows and breathes as in our natural bodies.

"The object is not the random juxtaposition of hostile pieces of music, but the creation of something entirely natural, despite its divergent pulses and harmonies. The result is not a jumble of sounds but often a strange serenity, with points of convergence. Rather than being unrelentingly busy, the multiple layers tend towards discerning restraint, engendering a blend of beauty and tension."

John Shand – Sydney Morning Herald

Spike Mason – Saxophone

Barney Wakeford – Organ

Dave Goodman – Drums