hING at the Casbah

Another new collaboration from a beloved old friend: Lou Damian has been playing reeds with a new “collective improv” dubbed hING. It also features Josh Quan (drums); Michael J. Stevens (guitar and percussion); and Michael Zimmerman (keyboards).

“hING is an elemental assemblage of five individuals with disparate musical experiences,” Michael Zimmerman explains. “We have come together to investigate inner and outer space with a communal brew of free improv and sound/tone investigations that seeks to attain feral heights of aural extremity and sustained moments of contemplative beauty.

These five individuals are, much like a jumble of letters, constantly shifted and shuffled into different shapes and formations to create a singular sound which is best described as the music of hING.”

“When hING gets together we never discuss what we’re going to play, or how we’re going to play it. Or, hardly ever — we’re not even 100 percent consistent in not discussing it,” writes Michael J. Stevens. “So, it would be interesting to see what each individual member would have to say about it.

“We are like a bunch of guys who play raggedy blues rock in a bar, except we don’t play blues — we emulate the ‘avant garde,’ free jazz, and ‘Energy Music.’ But we’re not fancy musicians — we are working guys, amateurs — we sound like a bunch of slop! But that slop is pretty fun and interesting to play and listen to most of the time because no two hING meetings are ever the same.

“And, we are not putting people on — we are really playing from our emotions,” Stevens concludes. “I’m waiting for someone to work up enough courage to start singing one of these times. Everyone had better hope that I am not the one to take this step forward — you’ll be sorry!”

Here’s video of hING performing recently at the Casbah in San Diego: