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Physical Science

by PC Muñoz

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Price includes download of 10 album tracks + two bonus tracks, chapbook, and postage for chapbook mailing.

    ***Please use the message prompt to submit your mailing address with your order, so we can send you the companion chapbook "Inside Pocket of a Houndstooth Blazer" and the exclusive liner note card. If you purchased a book/album bundle at a performance, no need to submit your mailing address.***
    Purchasable with gift card

      $12 USD  or more

     

1.
2.
Big Winner 02:14
3.
Counterfeit 01:37
4.
5.
6.
Ricochet 01:42
7.
Wrong 03:31
8.
Motion 00:46
9.
Abyss 04:43
10.

about

"Physical Science", the newest release from San Francisco maverick PC Muñoz, is a suite of drum-driven compositions executed via jazz-informed improvisation, electronic soundscapes, pop songcraft, art-funk rhythms, and lyrics that deal with America's darkest open secrets. Most instruments (including the rarely-heard belembaotuyan, an instrument from PC's Micronesian roots) and voices are performed by Muñoz; special guests include SoVoSo vocalist Bryan Dyer and avant-garde woodwinds renegade Kyle Bruckmann. Each digital download has 10 album tracks, 2 bonus/secret tracks, AND is accompanied by a brand new chapbook, "Inside Pocket of a Houndstooth Blazer", featuring lyrics, poems, flash fiction, comics, and more ---allow 1 week delivery for US, 1-2 weeks international.

Muñoz’s eclectic past work includes recordings with music legends like Jackson Browne and Dr. Fink of Prince and the Revolution, GRAMMY-nominated contemporary classical music with composer/longtime Kronos Quartet cellist Joan Jeanrenaud, world music jazz with EMMY-winning Vietnamese virtuoso Van-Anh Vo and fusion guitarist Nguyen Le, and experimental hip-hop with renegade MCs Kev Choice and DEM ONE.

Writers are buzzing:

“PC Muñoz’s 'Physical Science' is an engaging and inventive soundtrack for the chaos, conflict and questions America currently faces day in and day out. It’s about observation, analysis and transcending complex issues such as race, nationality and economic disparity. One only needs to glance at current news headlines to understand the macro view Muñoz explores. Percussion is at the heart of the album, encompassing both the core instrumentation and Muñoz’s rhythmic vocal approach. The album pulses through anger, concern, hope, and determination. It’s a soulful, reality-based journey conscious individuals will glean insight and inspiration from.”
—Anil Prasad, Innerviews.org

"All of the tracks on 'Physical Science' utilize artfully arranged acoustic and synthesized sounds...this digital-only album from a highly inventive artist will move listeners and inspire musicians to seek new sources of sounds and inspiration."
-Barbara Schultz, Electronic Musician/emusician.com

"PC Muñoz is not like other drummers. Sure, he makes his drums waltz and tango; and also performs a myriad of other dances on his drums. But he can also make the instrument do what it has done for ages: he can make them talk. Listening to 'Physical Science', one will be awestruck at how the calculated and the primordially elemental comes together in a songful manner. Mr Muñoz (is) a fascinating percussion colourist and a very astute manipulator of rhythmic textures...each percussion instrument when beaten, stroked and caressed seems to recite its own poetry..."
-Raul da Gama, Jazzdagama.com

"I imagine PC Muñoz broadcasting these songs and poems in the post-apocalypse: a loving badass wanderer documenting matters of love and devastation, history by heartbeat. He stops to taste the earth, buy a faded lottery ticket with no chance to win, looking not backwards but forwards for the ancestors. Lend him your ears: there is no better use for them."
-Bao Phi, 2018 Caldecott Medal winner, award-winning poet/spoken-word artist

“'Physical Science' is a creative and sonically engaging experience...Muñoz impressively translates the current socio-political frustration into an audible journey. His music is in a category all of its own---undefinable and refreshingly unique."
- Clarissa Gines, iexaminer.org.

"Against a musical bed that seamlessly incorporates hip-hop, jazz, industrial, and percolating, sinewy electronic flourishes, just for starters, PC Muñoz’s 'Physical Science' is a powerful state-of-now musical work. Cinematic in musical scope and feel, it molds autobiographical lyric detail into biting commentary on identity (race, class, family; what it means to be American and “of color,”) and the volatile moment we’re all trying to live through with as much heart and humanity intact as possible. John Donne and Chuck D. are among the cultural stalwarts who get shout-outs as Muñoz wrestles with what it means (as son, husband, father, friend, artist) to live in an empire on its last legs. Best track in the impressive collection: 'Who Will Bury Me?' – a sparse, wrenching hymn in which Bryan Dyer mournfully croons the title over and over. It’s impossible not to think of the parents of the countless Black and Brown youth who’ve been slain by the police (who are not held accountable) and those who almost daily have to bury children who’ve been victim of some mass school shooting. Muñoz and Dyer distill that unfathomable grief to its essence, and the result is harrowing art."
-Ernest Hardy, author of "Bloodbeats Vol.1: Demos, Remixes, & Extended Versions", PEN America Beyond Margins Award Winner, LA Weekly critic

"Once again, PC Muñoz has presided over a marriage of acoustic and electronic instruments and effects that not only desegregates them, but eliminates any divisive prejudice against either. In the process, he makes good music and conveys vital messages, effecting an electro-acoustic buzz throughout the listener’s nervous system."
-Jeff Kaliss, jazz/classical music writer, author of the definitive “I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly Stone”

"The fluidity of this funky creation/disintegration story is mesmerizing. PC Muñoz's new work dives deep into nonlinear grooves of truth, sound, and breath that refuse to be tamed or named."
-Arlene Biala, 2015 American Book Award winner, 2016-2018 Santa Clara County Poet Laureate

"PC Muñoz's new album and chapbook will transform how you see and hear the complex beauty of our postmodern world."
-Craig Santos Perez, 2015 American Book Award winner, poet, essayist,
2011 PEN Center USA Literary Award winner

"It would be too easy to describe PC Muñoz’s musicianship as virtuosic, disciplined, daring, and brave. His music, and his approach to it, forces us to reckon with ideas outside of the realm of music. From the bluesy, haunting, almost prison work song voice of Bryan Dyer on 'Who Will Bury Me?' to 'Big Winner's' woozy calliope sounds, 'Physical Science' is not only among Muñoz’s best, it is deserving of your full immersion into the aural world he has created."
-Shawn Taylor, author of "People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm" for the 331/3 series and "Big Black Penis: Misadventures in Race and Masculinity"

"PC Muñoz's ‘Physical Science’ is everything I need when it comes to music--mature, relevant , and on time!"
-Keith Knight, Gentleman Cartoonist, inspiration for HULU series “WOKE”

credits

released June 15, 2018

Written, arranged*, and produced by PC Muñoz

Personnel:
PC Muñoz - drum kit, cajón, drum programming, marimbata, Synsonics, Stylophone, gongs, electronics, synthesizers, toy piano, mbira, belembaotuyan, tape manipulation, lead and background vocals
Kyle Bruckmann -improvised oboe and cor anglais on "Motion" and "Abyss"
Bryan Dyer - lead vocals on "Who Will Bury Me?"
Miguel Muñoz - harmonica on "Wrong"
Willie Samuels - samples on "Abyss"

*Oboe/cor anglais arrangements on "Motion" and "Abyss" by Kyle Bruckmann, vocal arrangement on "Who Will Bury Me?" by PC Muñoz and Bryan Dyer

"Physical Science", "Ricochet", and "Who Will Bury Me?" recorded and mixed by Gabriel Shepard at 25th Street Recording, Oakland, CA

"Rugged Individual", Motion", and "Abyss" recorded and mixed by Willie Samuels at Studio Trilogy, SF, CA

"Counterfeit", "Fish & Crab", and "Big Winner" recorded and mixed by PCM at Studio Trilogy, SF, CA

"Wrong" recorded and mixed by PCM at Mighty Mig SF, CA

"Physical Science", "Motion", and "Abyss" mastered by Thomas Dimuzio, SF, CA

"Counterfeit" mastered by TW Walsh, Boston, MA

"Rugged Individual", "Fish & Crab", "Ricochet", "Big Winner", and "Who Will Bury Me?" mastered by Gary Hobish/A.Hammer Mastering, SF, CA

"Wrong" mastered by Chuck Zwicky, NYC, NY

Bonus track credits:
"The Relic"
Lyrics are a remix of John Donne's "The Relique"
Music is adapted from the traditional "Scarborough Fair"
Performed and produced by PC Muñoz
Recorded and mixed at Talking House Studios, San Francisco, by Peter Krawiec, additional engineering by Justin Lieberman
Mastered by Jessica Thompson, Oakland, CA

"Union"
Performed and produced by PC Muñoz
Recorded and mixed at Double Door Studios, San José, CA
Restored and mastered by Jessica Thompson, Oakland, CA

Cover design by Jodeci Zimmerman of Dope Overdose Studios, Atlanta, GA

"Physical Science", "Ricochet", "Who Will Bury Me?" originally commissioned by Robert Moses for the Robert Moses' Kin production "Trick Bags/Trap Doors/Painted Corners" (San Francisco)

“Motion" and "Abyss" originally commissioned by Muse Motion Dance for the multimedia dance production "Fall of a Sudden" (Hong Kong)

All my love and gratitude to Belinda and Miguel.

Deepest appreciation to my parents.

THANK YOU: Vernon Ruland, S.J., Nanay, Liberty, Ali Ruiz, Cindy McSherry, Joan Jeanrenaud, Cram, A2M, Stephen Smith, Justin Lieberman, Poff, Sir William and Marilou, Kelvin and Cecilia, Demone Carter, Alex Kelly, Dave Worm, Lyz Luke, Antonio Sanchez, Bao Phi, Will Magid, Dave Mihaly, Van-Anh Vo, Anil & Grace Prasad, Rickey Vincent, Devon Strolovitch, Arlene Biala, Craig Santos Perez, Bryan Dean, Don Campau, Dan Imhoff, Jeff Kaliss, Raul da Gama, Aengus McGiffin, Lucas Krech, Hanford Woods, Christopher Woon-Chen, Susie Tompkins Buell & Mark Buell, Mark Guerrero, Ernest Hardy, Matthew Szemela, Broun Fellinis, Black Quarterback, Gino Robair, Danny Zingarelli, Maya Finlay, Karl Evangelista, Yvette Holzwarth, Joe Agu, Ira Kamin, Dr. Fink and Andra Fink, C4NM, Eric Whittington/Bird & Beckett, Hollis P. Jenkins, Michael O’Flynn, Dore Stein, Sean Carson, The Loft Literary Center, DJ Jedi, DTM, Ivan Orr/GFM, Paul Dresher, Dale Chung, Derk Richardson, Shawn Taylor, Avy-K, Robert Moses’ Kin, Allen Lam and Muse Motion, John Paulsen, Amy Tobin, Cee & Rafael, Michael Winger, Christen McFarland and the SF Chapter family, Steve Luczo, Sean Walsh, and all my supporters over the years.


Special thanks to Art-Funk Patron #1: Diane Glazer

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Some rights reserved. Please refer to individual track pages for license info.

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about

PC Muñoz San Francisco, California

PC Muñoz is a musician, producer, and writer based in San Francisco. His singular music-making aesthetic bridges the gap between songcraft, free jazz, and the insistent rhythms of funk and hip-hop. His work has been praised by NPR, Electronic Musician, DownBeat, Performing Songwriter, and many others. Learn more at pcmunoz.com. ... more

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