WATIV

Sampler

WATIV

Here a few tracks from several records. Scroll down to download entire albums!

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    2 Rach B 11:10
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    01 Post Election News 2:47
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    Red Organ Trio Sampler 4:12
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    4 Cp Fx 6:12
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    Trapper Keaper Demo 2016 4:36
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    8 Assyrian Folk Song 10:05
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    River Birch 4:26
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    4 Pasteur Peace 11:50
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    1 Jacksin 11:34
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    Hey Jeff Your Late 10:43
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    2 Khalla 6:25
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    Following 8:48
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    WATIV Live From the Future Show (sample) 1:46
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Buy in itunes. WATIV, or William A. Thompson, IV, is an introverted musician, whose National Guard unit was activated on April, 27 2004. Upon deployment, and with permission from his higher-ups, Will took with him to Iraq a power book G4 and all necessary music production software. With MIDI, environmental samples, and imagination Will has begun and continues to compose music reflecting his experiences in this war. WATIV is Will’s transmission from Baghdad, his way of communicating his experience of war across the world. The result being the release of Baghdad Music Journal, the CD which makes this historic project assailable.

Buy on itunes! "The Clash once had an album called Combat Rock, but William A. Thompson’s combat music called Baghdad Music Journal (2006) was hardly a figurative statement; it was in fact the first record made and released from a war zone. Back home in New Orleans after being called up to service as a US Army counter intelligence agent in the Iraq War, Thompson (keyboards, laptop) got together with fellow Crescent City musicians Simon Lott (drums, effects), Chris Alford (guitar, effects) and James Singleton (bass, spoken word, effects) construct and issue a follow up CD, Syntaxis. As before, the music is officially credited to William A. Thompson IV’s initials, WATIV." -S. Victor Aaron

Buy in itunes. "WATIV signals keyboardist Will Thompson's return to civilian life in New Orleans after his four years of service in the U.S. military in Iraq, during which he created his evocative and innovative debut album, Baghdad Music Journal. Like that debut, WATIV presents a compelling soundtrack, by turns lyrical and rambunctious, attentive to unusual shifts of nearly tactile textures as well as melodies that suggest specific times and places and rhythms that are as easy to feel as the traditional beat of a jazz funeral's second-line. Thompson, originally from Mississippi, has assembled a band that shares and expands on his palette. It's tempting to call this music "fusion" but it's more than that: it's expression. With guitarist Chris Alford, drummer Simon Lott and bassist Tommy Sciple, Will Thompson plays with the joy of life and freedom of imagination we Americans tend to take for granted. But he's been in war zones where such joy and freedom are hardly imaginable, and that experience imbues WATIV with a little something extra that haunts and enriches Will Thompson's music, lending it both mystery and glimpses of what's really real." -- Howard Mandel (Author and president of the Jazz Journalists Association) Tracks & Audio