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    Gordian Knot's Sean Malone  
       

GORDIAN KNOT
Sean Malone's Collaborative Adventures

By Jim Batcho


If you have dreams of getting a couple of the biggest names in progressive rock to play on your album, just go ahead and ask them. That's what bassist Sean Malone did. For his recent Gordian Knot CD, Emergent, he simply asked drummer Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson) and guitarist Steve Hackett (Genesis) to be on his CD.

"When it came time for this new CD, I contacted Bill and asked him if he'd be interested in contributing a few tracks, which grew to more tracks," Malone says. "Bill's King Crimson band mate Trey Gunn played on and co-produced my previous Gordian Knot CD, which provided a point of reference. After sending him some of the current music and working out the details, he graciously agreed. Regarding Steve, I just took a stab at seeing if he'd like to join in. He and Bill are friends, and Bill passed on his contact info. I just assumed that he hadn't heard any of my work, so I sent him a copy of my current Gordian Knot CD, and he agreed to play on the CD."

Certainly, being a phenomenally talented bassist and Stick player with some great songs doesn't hurt when attempting to collaborate with your influences. And being able to do it via Pro Tools is a big help.

The Gordian Knot CD showcases the idea that the notion of collaboration is redefining itself thanks to the era of Pro Tools. The Emergent sessions went basically as follows: After Bruford's drums were tracked on a Pro Tools TDM system in London, Malone brought the sessions back to his home in Oregon on CD-R. He tracked bass, Stick, and guitars to his Digi 001 system, and then sent the recordings back to the U.K., where Hackett recorded final overdubs with his Pro Tools III rig. Everything was then returned and the album was mixed on a Pro Tools|24 MIXplus system with ProControl in Florida.

Malone says session transfers among the many different Pro Tools systems never became an issue. "Because of the complete interchangeability, it's very easy to get up and running," he says. "I was more concerned about making sure the mail would arrive properly than the files not working. Scheduling, as well as finances, dictates the workflow, but it's Pro Tools that makes it all possible. I don't think this CD could have been done without it."

Hackett has been a longtime user and advocate of Pro Tools. As he states: "With Pro Tools, you have the universe at your fingertips." Bruford, however, was fairly new to Pro Tools.

"We had a couple of interesting conversations about it," Malone says. "He's coming from a more pure jazz idiom, with regard to his own music, where overdubbing is kept to a minimum. But he did seem interested in the playlist idea, and how that would translate into powerful mixing options."

A Tangled Knot of Ideas

In essence, Gordian Knot is an umbrella project for Malone's solo work, he says. He composes all the music and elicits the talents of several musicians to help bring his songs to completion, including on this new CD former bandmates Jason Gobel, Sean Reinert, and Paul Masvidal. "I chose the moniker 'Gordian Knot' to represent the tangling that occurs when others interpret the music you've written," he says.

Emergent is set for an initial release in Japan this winter, followed shortly after by release dates in Europe and North America.
 
 
(l to r): Malone, Bill Bruford and Jason Gobel
    
Gordian Knot is not his first project. In 1993 he joined the progressive rock band Cynic, which developed a cult following in the tech-metal community with the release of Focus on RoadRunner records, and with tours in Europeand North America. The group eventually disbanded, but it led Malone to work with some of the biggest names in chops-driven music: Steve Morse, Reeves Gabrels, Mike Portnoy, John Myung, and Mike Keneally. Outside of Gordian Knot and his session work, Malone is a published author whose recent book is a collection of transcriptions and analyses of the late, great fusion bassist Jaco Pastorius (available from the Hal Leonard Corp.). He is also wrapping up his Ph.D. in Music Theory at the University of Oregon.

Malone is a longtime user of Digidesign systems, ever since the days of Sound Tools. He was initially skeptical of digital audio workstations because of their propensity to place features ahead of stability. With Pro Tools, all that changed.

"Very quickly things started to become very stable," he says. "Then, not only did it become stable, but extremely powerful. This visual orientation to recording was to me very similar to composing. The linear aspects of tape engender certain predispositions to recording and the creative process -- predispositions that became inextricably connected to what a 'good recording' is, which made little sense to me. Enter Pro Tools, and the only boundaries are the ones you choose to be a part of."

Malone expands on the idea of boundaries to say that it's important for Pro Tools users to respect the responsibility that comes with using it. "The more the machines can do for us, the less we have to do. I think Pro Tools is most useful to those who ask the least of it -- in other words, when it becomes the perfect mirror, an unclouded reflection of an artistic effort. When you are no longer encumbered by the distractions involved in documenting your creativity, and the technology permits you to more easily facilitate your vision, then the end result is more pure and ultimately more human."

Visual Songwriting

Malone is particularly fond of the visual nature of Pro Tools, which allows composers to create a new mindset when it comes to putting songs together. "To be able to visually apprehend the structure of a piece as you're composing it has tremendous advantages," he says. "It gives you the chance to try out arrangements at the click of a mouse. Because of this, I have complete control over the end result."

He cites as an example, the song "Singing Deep Mountain" off the Emergent record. "Bill played a groove that at the time sounded very appropriate," he says. "When I got home and was listening to things again, I felt it wasn't really working as I originally thought. So what I did was take eight bars of the tom tracks from the chorus, four bars of the snare track from the verse, and all of a sudden I had the part I was looking for. It's still all Bill -- just a bit re-arranged. Only a non-linear system like Pro Tools can provide these kinds of options."

Malone is currently focused on completing the Gordian Knot CD on schedule. He says he's been approached with offers to do festivals, but until scheduling conflicts can be resolved, plans are on hold to do any touring to support the record.

To purchase the Emergent CD upon release, or the self-titled Gordian Knot debut, check the Laser's Edge website, or visit the Gordian Knot website for news, updates, and video and MP3 examples.