Recorded September 6, 2022 at Parcheesi Studios in Huntington Station, NY.

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Bob Stander.

Cover art by Michael Hafftka.

Thank you to James Brandon Lewis for connecting Max and Michael. Special thanks to Bruce Gallanter at Downtown Music Gallery for hosting our first gig and to Stephen Gauci for tireless efforts on

Recorded September 6, 2022 at Parcheesi Studios in Huntington Station, NY.

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Bob Stander.

Cover art by Michael Hafftka.

Thank you to James Brandon Lewis for connecting Max and Michael. Special thanks to Bruce Gallanter at Downtown Music Gallery for hosting our first gig and to Stephen Gauci for tireless efforts on behalf of improvised music in NYC both at Bushwick Public House and now Main Drag. Special thanks also to Michael Hafftka for gracing our album with your work and to Bob Stander for your audio wizardry.

Symbiotique is the electroacoustic duet of Michael Eaton (saxophones) and Seth Davis (guitar, electronics).

From May 7 to May 10, 2022, the group engaged in a NYC mini tour, augmenting and reconfiguring itself with different musicians each day. This totally improvised set is from day four, live at Downtown Music Gallery.

Recorded May 10, 2022 to

Symbiotique is the electroacoustic duet of Michael Eaton (saxophones) and Seth Davis (guitar, electronics).

From May 7 to May 10, 2022, the group engaged in a NYC mini tour, augmenting and reconfiguring itself with different musicians each day. This totally improvised set is from day four, live at Downtown Music Gallery.

Recorded May 10, 2022 to an iPad.

Thank you to Bruce Gallanter at Downtown Music Gallery for hosting us.

Cover art: “Woven dreams” by Pien Van Der Beek
Graphic design: Dani Gros

Second Nature is dedicated to Karl Marx, Murray Bookchin, and Joel Kovel: towards a freer society of universal human freedom and dignity that recognizes the mutuality of human and ecological existence and the necessity of a more ecological social, economic, and political consciousness.

A better world is possible!

"That we have seen an ever

Second Nature is dedicated to Karl Marx, Murray Bookchin, and Joel Kovel: towards a freer society of universal human freedom and dignity that recognizes the mutuality of human and ecological existence and the necessity of a more ecological social, economic, and political consciousness.

A better world is possible!

"That we have seen an ever greater development of consciousness, intelligence and the rudiments of mind, and by mind I mean reason in a human sense. That is to say, the ability to flexibly create one’s environment. And that human beings are constituted by natural evolution itself to intervene in the environment. Not simply to adapt to it. Not simply to find a niche in the environment or secure way of living. But also to change it.

That’s what is unique about human beings: using their rationality, such that the environment is suitable for them; not leaving it up to evolution to make them suitable for changes in the environment.

Now that’s an enormous qualitative step. It’s a qualitative difference.

It does not mean that the world was made for us. It wasn’t made for anyone. In fact it wasn’t made. It evolved, cosmically speaking, over billions of years...

Nature as we understand it, as we are talking about it, is evolution. Otherwise the word “nature” dissolves into being anything. Anything that contains molecules, and that is anything as such— atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons, etc—that would be nature.

If one goes beyond that notion of nature as being more than just that which exists, we are talking about the biosphere. And when we talk about the biosphere we are talking about its evolution. Otherwise the word “nature” becomes so big, so promiscuous as it were, so “universal” as to become almost vacuous. It becomes the being that is nothing.

So we are talking, when we speak of a natural world, or when we speak of the biosphere, we’re talking about evolution. And it is always evolving...

Since we’ve been organized by natural evolution to intervene, as I told you this is not a sinister plot by social ecologists to create people who meddle in the natural world all the time, this is the product of millions and millions of years of evolution involving changing simple rock forms into weapons, or into cutting tools, or whatever you like. We have also evolved in a way that has opened a new area of evolution: second nature.

This new area of evolution is socio-cultural…

So what is remarkable about human social evolution is that you see an evolution of institutions.

And the community that human beings establish differs profoundly. This new second nature, which now undergoes an evolution of its own (or a development of its own, or a history of its own, use whatever words you want) undergoes a development of its own. An elaboration of its own on grounds that are fundamentally different to the kind you see in the natural world.

The real question that one faces is this: if this animal called a “human being”—normal human being —is potentially capable of being rational, potentially capable of being creative, potentially capable of changing his or her environments such that no other animal [or] creature can do, then will that animal, or can that animal, or should that animal, create institutions that are themselves rational as well?

In other words, should this second nature, this evolution live up to the basic capacity that makes us human beings unique—namely, the capacity to be rational and self-conscious?"

-Murray Bookchin, Second Nature (1996), from theanarchistlibrary.org

Michael Leonard Eaton (b. 1981) is a Brooklyn, NY based saxophonist, composer, and educator active in contemporary jazz and free improvisation. He embraces a progressive and holistic vision of jazz, cognizant of the music's rich history, while he reaches for a personal outlook with an eye towards future possibilities. He has releases available on Steeplechase, Ropeadope, Dialogical, Mother Brain, and Destiny.

Seth Andrew Davis is a performer, composer, improviser, and electronic musician working and living in Kansas City, MO. Davis is a part of the new music, free improvised, and electronic music scenes in Kansas City, performing in various ensembles, bands, and as a solo artist in KC and abroad. Davis is the co-founder of Mother Brain Records, a Kansas City based label focusing on releasing music from improvisers and experimental artists. Davis is also a founding member of Extemporaneous Music Society, an improvised/experimental collective founded with Evan Verploegh.

A special thank you to Andrea Cukier for allowing her wonderfully striking painting, Broken Forest, to grace our cover.

An extra special thank you to Tom Ptacek and the Westport Coffee House for being an indefatigable supporter of the musicians and for graciously hosting our development since 2017.

"Besides being crammed with smart writing and absorbing instrumental detail, it's an exquisitely paced record. Owners of adventurous ears owe it to themselves to hear it." - The Stash Dauber, Nov. 2022

This is my first album as a bandleader under my own name as well as my first composed album since moving to NY in 2018. It's a pretty important

"Besides being crammed with smart writing and absorbing instrumental detail, it's an exquisitely paced record. Owners of adventurous ears owe it to themselves to hear it." - The Stash Dauber, Nov. 2022

This is my first album as a bandleader under my own name as well as my first composed album since moving to NY in 2018. It's a pretty important release for me because of these two factors and also how much of a direct hand I had in the production and realization. The pieces represent the fullest, most fluid realization to date of my musical personality and expand on much of the work I've done with all of my prior projects in Los Angeles (Bubbeleh, Izela, Evil Genius, Android Trio, etc.). If there was a theme tying the stuff together, I think I could best describe it as "mental movies". This is the content of my skull splayed out in full color and sprawled across all the pieces. I'm extremely proud of how much the music speaks to my interests, humor, taste and even my playing.

The music here is performed by a quintet of New York-based musicians (and some of my closest friends in town). In addition to guitars, I also play keyboards, electronic drums and place prerecorded samples throughout all the tracks. A recording of my grandfather playing saxophone during a concert of his from the 70s is sampled on track 2.

The album was recorded and mixed by Martin Bisi at BC Studios in Gowanus. That is the same studio where Swans, White Zombie, Bill Laswell's Material, Zorn, Violent Femmes, Dresden Dolls, Blind Idiot God, Sonic Youth, Brandon Seabrook, Sana Nagano and a host of others made albums over the past 40 years. Martin was directly involved with all of that as engineer. The main room is in the bowels of an old canning factory and used to be a horse stable as I understand it. It's an enormous space with tons of ultra reflective brick for a super live, cavernous sound which comes across on all the tracks. This gave the set a unique aesthetic for an album of through-composed, math-y compositions featuring a band which is a jazz-like orchestration (plus me anyway). We recorded the whole set on Sat, Sept 18th, 2021 and I gradually created overdubs of my parts and the synth content from my apartment over a period of roughly 4-5 months. Martin and I mixed the tracks together at BC in 3 8-hour sessions over the first half of 2022.

I hope it appeals to musically curious folks who share tastes across prog, math-rock, modern jazz and free improvisation among other styles and also folks who are firmly dedicated to their sense of humor and prefer to take in full-length albums the old-fashioned way: from start to finish.

-MK, 11/04/2022

Michael Eaton - tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute

Many saxophonists inspired this project with their solo playing: Dave Liebman, John Butcher, Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, Roscoe Mitchell, Gianni Gebbia, Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, Mark Turner, Joe Henderson, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Michael Brecker, Joe Lovano, and Branford Marsalis.

Michael Eaton - tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute

Many saxophonists inspired this project with their solo playing: Dave Liebman, John Butcher, Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker, Roscoe Mitchell, Gianni Gebbia, Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, Mark Turner, Joe Henderson, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Michael Brecker, Joe Lovano, and Branford Marsalis.

A special thanks to Tom Walsh for assigning solo saxophone at Indiana University and to Dave Liebman for relating his experiences on the art of solo playing.

All improvisations or compositions by Michael Eaton except The Search for the Golden Raintree, which is composed by Jerry Morris.

"The Middle Passage" is loosely inspired by a book of the same name by James Hollis.

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Bob Stander at Parcheesi Studio.
Logo design by Austin Glassco.
Album art by Joel Cammarata.
Cover design by Heather Basile.

The Maximal Effect is the second release from Symbiotique, the electroacoustic duo of Michael Eaton and Seth Andrew Davis. The album consists of eight improvisations featuring Eaton on tenor and soprano saxophones and flute and Davis on laptop/electronics. The Maximal Effect follows up the duo's 2020 eponymous release, Symbiotique, which

The Maximal Effect is the second release from Symbiotique, the electroacoustic duo of Michael Eaton and Seth Andrew Davis. The album consists of eight improvisations featuring Eaton on tenor and soprano saxophones and flute and Davis on laptop/electronics. The Maximal Effect follows up the duo's 2020 eponymous release, Symbiotique, which inaugurated Mother Brain Records.