This album is incredibly dear to me and kudos to Ian Katz for tracking it down and helping get this up here to Bandcamp. When I lived at The Walt Whitman Birthplace (across the street from the mall and up the road from the glorious Oceancrest Diner) and served as its caretaker along with beauties Dan Sullivan first and Tim Hults for the second half of our tenure, we created a rehearsal space in the basement of our cottage. Surreal rehearsed there and then Milquetoast and lots of wonderful nights of music and poetry and sound explorations were had with very talented special guests who carved out notable careers in music. (If you're reading this and you dropped by one of those nights, know that I'm indebted to your presence!)

Occasionally and often late into the night, I'd get together with a special trio. Ian Katz on drums, Tom "Sasquatch" Karcher on Chapman Stick, and me on guitar. This first night of jams, which I think happened at some point in 1999, is immortalized here in all its extemporaneous and imaginative glory along with some turns at the well during other nights with friends. What a searching journey it was! We were emboldened by friendship and on those repetitive treks to find the sublime at the end of each note, which could only be truly realized if shared. We were playing individually - learning how to make in this open and honest and free way - but indelibly together. The album title, which is on the homespun cover art (we only made a few of these for the discerning ears), is indicative of this intertextuality, if you will, between players and tracks and suggestive ideas. Fabric. Friendship. Trust. I'm okay with basically anything that happens here. Are you? Shifting through genre (psychedelia, classical, free jazz and funk and noise traditions, garage punk, ambient soundscapes, repetitive and mantra-like meditations, and what else?). Listening back now, it's like my god...it was so...free and wide open. All of it. And 100% improvised.

From the sleeve: "An experiment in unconventional improvisation, Stratosphere features the wide, sonic scope of the Chapman Stick intertwining with mutations of guitar and other instrumentation over a drum palette. Its goal is to communicate through the sound of the instrument in fragmented nonlinear fashion. It is the suggestion and simultaneous deconstruction of notes and chords, rhythms and melodies - music for the syntax of the mind and body."

And then this: "The contents of this CD are purely improvised. Any unauthorized usage of the music herein contained is subject to the jurisdiction of the laws of cosmic communication."

The more I think about it, the more it feels a bit like a poem feels to me when it really works well in the sense that the primary thing to which it pays respect is the universe (as opposed to preconceived notions of craft or aesthetic grace, which are, of course, concerns in the equation but not the primary concern or intention). Were we punks? Were we in over our heads? Did we care? Is there any other way? Stratosphere went on to make stuff up on occasion here and there and on some actual stages in meaningful collaborations for some time and may very well do it again someday if we're not too lucky. Who knows. One thing is for sure though...on those nights we were on electric fire, constellations, not standing still enough to give ourselves away.

Thank you, my brothers.