1.2.3. Cryptic Triptych (3:37)
4.5.6.7.8. Stations (3:38)
9.10.11. Unknowing Is (13:41)
12. Next Age News (5:08)
13. Suspended Sentence:
Rainman's Outta Prism (4:32)
14. Vernacular (4:35)
15. New Earth Dreams (17:35)

Total time: 52:52

All music by Stone * Zelenka * Mills
Recorded and mixed at Krazy Kat Studio:
Jay Zelenka, engineer. 1998-9

Cover art and design: Tony Patti
Produced by: Jay Zelenka & Freedonia Music
© (P) 2006 Freedonia Music

Greg Mills: piano, prepared piano, percussion, inside Steinway baby grand (on New Earth Dreams).
Dave Stone: baritone, tenor, and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet, trombone.
Jay Zelenka: alto saxophone, flute, prepared piano, synthesizer, percussion.

Premonitions is a study in diversity & contrast, a primmer of free music styles influences & confluences. Mining territory previously plundered by the original Exiles duo of Jay Zelenka & Greg Mills there is ample evidence of 20th century Euro-Classicism & World Music Influences filtered thru a free improv sensibility. Essentially a collection of duo & trio collaborations mixing live performances with heavily layered multi-track compositions; the unifying thread is Zelenka's multifaceted vision. The first three pieces are all multi-part live performance. In Cryptic Triptych an abstract austere meditation for bowed gongs and piano is parenthetically high-lighted by exuberant, almost light-hearted duets on the inside of a "prepared" baby grand piano. Stylistically and structurally the next piece, Stations, is far removed from this tangential homage to Cage & Stockhousen. Here we have Mills on digital piano, Zelenka on Synths & Dave Stone on a variety of reed mouthpieces, soprano sax and a rare performance on trombone. This series of five short pieces conceived as haiku in reference to length also reflect the poetic art forms poignancy, imagistic sleight of hand & magical transformations through juxtaposition & contrast. Stones warbling winds bring a free jazz playfulness to the mix. In the comparatively lengthy tripartite Unknowing Is, the free jazz free blowing sensibility takes over with Mills on piano, Stone on baritone & soprano & Zelenka on alto sax in a scorching balls-to-the-walls tour de force. The unrelenting three-way is punctuated by several short piano solos that give no one a chance to "catch their breath". Next Age News continues the foray into free jazz styling with a multi-track saxophone chorus. While multi-voiced sax improv sans rhythm section is reminiscent of any number of free improve innovators (Rova, Free Jazz Posse) here the concept is turned on its edge as two very empathetic players perform layers of live improv to create the effect of a larger number of reeds playing live. Stone & Zelenka extend this concept even further on their upcoming saxophone summit (scheduled for future release on the Freedonia Music label). Suspended Sentence with its eerie suspended time-sense is a synthesis of stylistic elements woven thru Exiles earlier oeuvre. Contemplative and lyric influences of various Asian musics meld with modern Euro-centric preoccupations. Woven through this fabric we hear echoes of Exiles characteristic use of non-western percussion in un-metrical expression as color timbre & pulse. In Vernacular the duet of Mills and Zelenka returns for an extended piece to live improve on the inside of a prepared piano. New Earth Dreams is the longest and most ambitiously formal piece on Premonitions running almost 18 minutes, structured in seven movements, heavily layered & built on a detailed preconceived structure in which many compositional elements were fixed within strict parameters of instrumental choice, mood & time-feel, duration, level of interactivity or non-interactivity while leaving note choice and phrasing to the improvising musicians. Stone, Zelenka & Mills are all present on this piece.