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I have a new solo album out today called Ring the Bell For the 10,000 Forgotten Things on Monastral. It's my follow up to 2019's In Low Light (Music for the Winter Solstice). We're doing something a little different for this release. The album will be available as a download only but the physical object is a catalog-style photography book, titled Fragmented Wilderness of the Calumet Region. This project is the moment when all of my seemingly disparate practices come together as one. Sound, photography, ecological study and free-improvisation all seamlessly interact with this release. More info on all of this on the Monastral Bandcamp page where you can also purchase the download and the book. Thanks so much for your interest and support. And special thanks to Corey Hagelberg and his Calumet Residency program where this project all began on a dune in Miller Woods back in the Fall of 2019. Take care, Mike

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Monastral label showcase in Chicago. This will also be the release event for Rocio Zavala’s tape and my new album which will be a digital download and a photography catalogue. 

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Zelienople studio report:

We wrapped up two weekends with P.M. Tummala providing the engineering, producing and vibraphoning roles. This was the first time in our 20 plus year history where we had someone else taking care of the recording details. This really freed us all up and it really showed. Creativity flowed naturally and spontaneously. We knocked out at least two albums worth of material and it sounds fantastic! Our best work yet, in my opinion. Mixing will begin soon so hopefully this stuff will see the light of day in 2022.

Thanks for hanging around with our sounds all these years. Maybe one day we’ll actually hit the road so we can finally meet some of you.

Take care everyone.

-mike

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This Thursday evening at 6:30 I’ll be leading another soundwalk in the Kleinstuck Nature Preserve. For this one we will follow three Sonic Meditations by Pauline Oliveros. The three that I chose are intended to direct soundwalkers to 1. Listen with wide awareness 2. Listen with sharp focus and 3. Respond to what you are listening to with your own improvised sounds.

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LIGHT BEHIND THE LIGHTStep into Light Behind the Light with musicians Elizabeth Start (cello) and Mike Weis (percussion) as they explore and perform within artist Beth Bradfish’s newest sound installation - filmed on location at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum in southwest Michigan.Produced by the Michigan Festival of Sacred Music and part of the Connecting Chords Music Festival

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My first lead soundwalk in Kalamazoo was a success. We had great weather for a great turnout (35 in attendance). I’m hoping to organize another one in October and attempt one of Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations. Thanks to everyone who came out. Thanks to the Stewards of Kleinstuck for co-hosting the walk.

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After a year and a half of being virtual I’ve got my first live show on the calendar. Also, my first show in my new town.

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We’ve been trying to do this for two years. Slow Bell Trio (myself, Keefe Jackson and Steven Hess) finally got into the studio today. Making sound creations in a room, on the fly with these humans was fucking great! No headphones, no overdubs, no playback listening parties. Just one improvisational piece after the next for a few hours. "First thought, best thought” (to quote Allen Ginsburg). “Spontaneous and fearless! Alex Inglizian at the controls kept it all flowing smoothly. I really do miss Experimental Sound Studio, such a cultural gem that Chicago is lucky to have. #experimentalmusic #improvisedmusic #avantgardemusic #musiqueconcrete #electroacousticmusic

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Hey there, I have a solo track included on this compilation album. MAKE NOISE MYANMAR 2 is the second compilation curated by seah and Mykel Boyd, a mixtape style compilation put together for the purpose of raising awareness about what is happening in Myanmar and raising money to support the resistance movement there.

#experimentalmusic #ambientmusic

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For those of you who missed the live stream on Saturday here is the concert posted on YouTube in its entirety, with a tiny portion of the discussion section that followed.

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TRAPPED! A LIVESTREAM SOLO PERCUSSION PERFORMANCE

Saturday, March 13, 1pm ET, noon Central USA (7pm Central Euro TIme)   ZOOM:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81099181121 Meeting ID: 810 9918 1121

There is archaeological evidence from the Paleolithic era of an animal skin stretched over a hollow log that suggests humans were using drums at least 35,000 years ago. However, the drum kit is a new invention, haphazardly coming together out of necessity around 1890. It’s a distinctly American instrument, a hodgepodge of a contraption (for most of its existence it has been called a “trap kit”, short for contraption), bringing together influences from the plethora of new immigrants that were flooding into America at the time. New Orleans was the epicenter of the new music of Ragtime, Blues and Jazz and the trap kit was the pulse of it all. Those early days drummers experimented heavily with different configurations of this new instrument, adding cymbals from Turkey, Tom Tom’s and Buddhist temple blocks from China, snares from Europe, bass drums from Western Asia and various rattles, shakers, etc. from Africa as well as pillaging through tool sheds and barns for whatever else would work like sandpaper, anvils, bike horns, alarm bells, cowbells and woodblocks. It’s a truly global mash-up! Drummers used all of these things to create new rhythms for new music, a succinct version of the percussion ensembles from West Africa. I like to reflect on this history every time I scratch together a new contraption of my own from the mess that is laying about my studio. For this livestream I have created four pieces for my (current) version of a trap kit that in addition to percussion and found objects from around the world also includes homemade inventions by Matt Christensen and Tim Kaiser as well as "prepared" acoustic guitar and looping pedal. This performance is hosted by Chad Grabner in Germany on the Zoom platform.

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I’m honored to be among this recording project by composer Rutger Zuydervelt from the Netherlands. Lot’s of impressive percussionists on this album. My track is with Tony Buck (The Necks) and Yuko Oshima.

https://escrec.bandcamp.com/album/with-drums

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Light Behind the Light performance (via Vimeo)

Saturday, November 21 at 8:00 PM Eastern (7:00 Central), part of the Experimental Sound Studio's The Quarantine Concert series. Light Behind the Light: musicians Elizabeth Start (cello) and Mike Weis (percussion) explore and perform within artist Beth Bradfish’s newest sound installation - filmed on location at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum in southwest Michigan. Produced by the Michigan Festival of Sacred Music and part of the Connecting Chords Music Festival

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Listen/purchase: 49 days (Music For A Transition) by Mike Weis

New solo album available for pre-order on the Granny Records from Greece,

Statement for 49 Days (Music For A Transition)

The inspiration for this work came out of a tragic loss. I felt an overwhelming pull to create these two pieces following the sudden death of my father-in-law. In the tradition of the form of Zen Buddhism that I practice there is a ritual that is performed for 49 days following the death of a loved one. During this period the grieving chant the name of Ji-Jang Bosal, “the bodhisattva of transitions,” everyday for an extended time during meditation. The Buddhist mythology of this ritual is to call upon the bodhisattva to assist the dead as they navigate the bardo period, guiding them to see clearly through their karma to choose an appropriate re-birth. A less metaphysical, more secular purpose for this practice is that it is meant more for the living than the dead - a grieving method to bring one closer to the dead, a way to go beyond death as a separation from the living. I’ve found this approach to be very powerful and while deep in chanting meditation one morning the idea to soundtrack the images that I had in my mind of this “otherworld” came to me clearly. The Ghost in You is structured around a field recording that I made of the carillon at Rockefeller Chapel on the campus of University of Chicago. I recorded it many years ago while I was on a guided tour of the carillon tower. By pitching the speed down I noticed that the recording had an elegiac quality that I have never quite found a suitable use for until this idea. From this starting point I built a composition of sounds from homemade instruments and contact mic’d gong and ride cymbal. The name of this track references The Psychedelic Furs song by the same name. I’ve always loved the poetry of this title, it seems to imply that in the midst of living we are all ghosts, constantly in a state of transition. Walking With Ji-Jang is also a track built around a field recording, one that I made on my father-in-law’s property in Indiana. I placed the tape recorder on a bridge that he built over a creek, connecting his yard to the woods behind his house. The significance of this bridge to me represents the passing from the domestic, tame world of a familiar shore to the unknown wilderness beyond. After Rick died my son and I created a small Ji-Jang Bosal statue made from boulders, which is a tradition in Korean and Japanese Mahayana Buddhism. We placed this memorial at the entrance of the bridge and we bow to it every time we pass by on our walks into the woods. Ji-Jang Bosal’s name means “Earth Store.” The myth says that he takes care of everyone in the six worlds that exist between Sogamonibul (the historical Buddha) and Maitreyabul (the future Buddha). He travels the sub-world realms saving all beings. In statues, he has a staff in his right hand that is adorned with rattles and bells to warn smaller beings so they don’t get trampled under foot. He is also known as a guardian of children and travellers. The title of this piece references the Spaceman 3 song, Walking With Jesus.”

Release date: November 15, 2020 Composed, performed and recorded by Mike Weis Mastered by Matt Christensen Design & Artwork by Yorgos Vourlidas Edition of 80 copies | CS | granny 25

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Mike Weis — In Low Light (Music for the Winter Solstice) (Notice Recordings)

Photo by Jeehoon Weis

Mike Weis is a drummer. You might have heard him threading sparse beats and guiding a loose rhythmic flow through the music of Zelienople, duos with Simon Scott and Scott Tuma, his own solo recordings, or beating the dharma drum at Zen Buddhist Temple Chicago. If you follow him on social media, you will also know that Weis is a long-distance runner and a sincere lover of nature. And Weis lives in Chicago; he knows the sonic rush and soul-cleansing deliverance of Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang’s annual winter solstice duo concerts, during which a company of listeners greet the sun on the year’s shortest mornings. 

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