Road Julep is the collaboration of Jerod Sommerfeldt and Paul Schuette. We believe in making freely improvised music because –
“Improvisation is a game that the mind plays with itself, in which an idea is allowed to enter the playing field, in order to be kicked around in pleasing patterns for a moment before being substituted by another idea. The first idea is unintentional, an error, a wrong note, a fumble in which the ball is momentarily lost, a momentary surfacing of an unconscious impulse normally kept under cover. The play to which it is subjected is the graceful recovery of the fumbled ball, a second ‘wrong’ note that makes the first one seem right, the justification for allowing the idea to be expressed in the first place.” “Improvisation tells us: Anything is possible – anything can be changed – now.” -Frederic Rzewski
And we need this reminder now more than ever.
Phenomenal Smith
Belly up and slug a second Road Julep – Paul Schuette and Jerod Sommerfeldt have ground up another round of over-the-top antics (with a smooth finish) on their second album Phenomenal Smith. Mix 2 parts glitch with 6 dashes of ambient and pulse in a blender for an easy sipper that lands somewhere beyond leftfield, yet still in play.
Road Julep’s sliced and diced improvisations are fungos for your eardrums – named for the self-described phenom whose inauspicious big league debut netted no less than 14 team errors and 18 earned runs. Phenomenal, indeed.
Rube Waddell
Mix two parts gravel with a glug of Kentucky moonshine – top with a sprig of mint – and you’ve got Rube Waddell, the debut album from Road Julep. Spliced, edited, and mixed from hours of distance-recorded improvisations, this album hones in on the sweet spot between indulgent noise bath and haptic euphoria. Test your mettle while acknowledging your need for the finer things.
If you’ve never heard of Rube Waddell, he’s one of the most eccentric characters in the history of professional baseball. As a left-handed pitcher, he had an incredible number of strike-outs during an era in which there weren’t many. (Oh, how the game has changed!) But it’s his unpredictable behavior that he’s most infamous for. Easily distracted during games, he would chase after fire trucks, walk off the mound to pet puppies in the stands, or just leave the ballpark entirely to go fishing.
We hope that our music helps you to tap into that unruly feeling: the one that tells you that anything is possible, all of the time.
