About the Band
From the dark dingy slums of lower Manhattan rock clubs to the bright manic
stages of summer music festivals, the powerful sound of seaflux leaves
audiences thirsty for more. Combining improvisation with sophisticated
composition, seaflux keeps listeners teetering on the brink of reality, taking
them on a musical journey that is far from the realms of the ordinary.seaflux is led by guitarist Phil Christensen and drummer Matthew Cole, who have played music venues such as the famous Blue Note, CBGB's, The Lion's Den and the Tribeca Rock Club.
To keep things fresh every night, Christensen and Cole are joined by various professional guest musicians with no discrimination for style or genre. All that matters is the music that is created...every night is a different adventure...
Phil Christensen
guitar, vox, alchemy
Phil is a composer living in New York City who works in a wide variety of styles, including funk, blues, jazz, fusion, rock, avant garde, electronic, progressive rock, and many others. His influences are an equally large number of musicians, including (but not limited to) Frank Zappa, Trey Anastasio, Miles Davis, John Scofield, John Medeski, and Jaco Pastorius.
Phil holds a Master's degree in Studio Composition from SUNY Purchase, where he studied with the new music composer Joel Thome. During the summer of 2008, Phil attended Medeski Martin and Wood's Camp MMW where he studied with members of MMW, and other instructors including Steve Bernstein and Marc Ribot.
Matthew Cole
drums, vox, time travel
Matthew Cole hails from Niskyuna, NY, where in his early years he was credited with inventing both the AABA and ABABCB song structures.
[Ed: Matt hasn't given me a bio yet, so from here I'm just paraphrasing the biography of world-renowed drummer Terry Bozzio]
Cole attended Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo, California, where he received a music scholarship in 1969. He recorded and toured with Frank Zappa, and appeared in the concert movie Baby Snakes, and then the band UK. He is noted for performing Zappa's "The Black Page", a piece of music designed to be a "musician's nightmare" a page so filled with notes as to be almost black.
Like Hall of Fame drummer Gary Chester, Cole is noted for creating the melodic ostinato for the drum set. In most of Cole’s works, the ostinato is played using various bass drum and hi-hat permutations while he solos against these rhythms using his hands. Like Chester, Cole developed the application for the melodic ostinato for drum set when he noticed how a pianist would solo or play counter rhythms against the ostinato or pedal point. He then applied this concept to the drum set.
Cole was inducted into Guitar Center's RockWalk in Hollywood on January 17, 2007 along with rock and roll icons Ronnie James Dio and Slash.
