Whit Dickey / William Parker / Matthew Shipp – Village Mothership

Whit Dickey / William Parker / Matthew Shipp – Village Mothership

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Released October 15, 2021

[TAO 06]

CD – in deluxe 6-panel digipak w/ vintage East Village photographs by Sylvia Plachy & extensive liner notes by Steven Joerg.

LP – one-time edition (of 542) on black vinyl, with insert & bandcamp-hosted download card. We've sold out of copies on hand; our friends at Forced Exposure mail-order might still have a few left - check here.



Drummer Whit Dickey, bassist William Parker, & pianist Matthew Shipp present an astonishing new collective creation, their first studio recording since the Shipp-led 1992 classic, Circular Temple. This is also their first assembly since working together in the revered David S. Ware Quartet. "Everything is melody." - Whit Dickey on the mantra of the music.

In the late 1980s / early ’90s, pianist Matthew Shipp and drummer Whit Dickey were young musicians taking part in the cultural ferment happening on New York City’s Lower East Side, a place where free jazz, avant-rock and all manner of creative arts and political causes were colliding and combining to further the area’s legacy of progressive action. William Parker – although just 2 years older than Dickey – had been part of that progressive action since the mid-70s, and was already a world traveler. As Shipp has noted on numerous occasions, a key aim in his moving to NYC in the mid-80s was to make music with Parker. The sound and sensibility of that vintage East Village milieu informed Shipp’s very first trio album, the striking Circular Temple. Although the three have worked together in important configurations in the decades since (vitally, in the mighty David S. Ware Quartet), they are now releasing their first trio studio album together since that original classic: Village Mothership, its title in homage to the rich environment that fed the artistic development of these artists. The package features vintage images of the LES/East Village by noted photographer Sylvia Plachy (Village Voice staff photographer at that time), and extensive liner notes by AUM Fidelity's Steven Joerg. This brand new work re-ignites the trio’s profound creative pulse, with 30 years of devotion to the music since then clearly evident. The track titles reflect the creation of this music, beginning from silence with a totally open mindfulness.

“We created this album in the moment as a trio,” Dickey explains. “The atmosphere of this session was warm and fun, and it was a deep, wondrous experience with the three of us. To me, everything is melody. And the melodies manifest out of the mantra of our playing, the rhythms radiating multi-directionally out of those melodic vibrations. Mystical stuff was happening.”

Whit Dickey: drums
William Parker: bass
Matthew Shipp: piano


1. A Thing & Nothing - 10:06
2. Whirling In The Void - 9:39
3. Nothingness - 11:06
4. Village Mothership - 11:08
5. Down Void Way - 5:32
6. Nothing & A Thing - 8:22

LP edition features:
A – Nothingness / Village Mothership
B – Down Void Way / Nothing & A Thing
Includes Bandcamp-hosted download card with all 6 tracks

All compositions by Dickey/Parker/Shipp

Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Jim Clouse
At Park West Studios, Brooklyn

Produced by Whit Dickey
Photographs by Sylvia Plachy
Liner notes by Steven Joerg