Superfluity Jonathan Segel

• 1 Equilibrium, Pt. 1 03:17
• 2 Mouse 04:14
• 3 Cat & Mouse 03:28
• 4 Imply It, Deny It 03:49
• 5 The Seventh Wave 02:23
• 6 Rain Down 03:03
• 7 Sleep for a Hundred Years 06:46
• 8 Silent Notes 04:22
• 9 Like Mercury, It Slips Through Your Fingers 12:58
• 10 Phenomenon and On 23:57
• 11 The Luxury of Living 03:25
• 12 Strawberry Sun 05:24
• 13 Superfluity 08:07
• 14 The Luxury of Dying 01:07
• 15 No Backup Plan 04:25
• 16 The Dying Stars 16:25
• 17 Equilibrium, Pt. 2 02:10
• Total Runtime 01:49:20

Info for Superfluity

A double album of songs and music about the significance and insignificance of love, life and, well, everything.

Superfluity, the album, takes the long view. In the long view, love, and even life itself are just the overflow of the stars and their planets, balls of rocks and gas circling around the universe. We people do have a tendency to dwell only on our own little lives at the expense of the world around us and its continuation. “It could be a garden!”

Aren’t we lucky to be alive at all? We really should enjoy it.

The songs contain universes; it’s been over 30 years since Camper Van Beethoven began making records, and more than 25 years since Jonathan’s first “solo” album, Storytelling (1988), and all of the music in between informs the songs here. Jonathan brings a whole lot of guitars and basses, some violin and synthesizer, and an awful lot of studio expertise—complete with a dash of musique concrete thrown in.

Drumming from Mattias Olsson (Änglagård, Pineforest Crunch, Necromonkey) and Chris Pedersen (Camper Van Beethoven, Monks of Doom), combined with the beautiful voice of Kelly Atkins (20 Minute Loop, Kitka) means that the tracks are strong while both simple and complex at the same time. The deeper you dig, the more you will find.

It’s a child’s-eye view of the beauty of the end of the world.

"What overshadows this double album is the freeform improvisations (such as 'Like Mercury, It Slips Through Your Fingers') lasting up to twenty-four minutes, including an interminable secret track 'Phenomenon and On' on Disc 1, or sound collages that, while intriguing and sometimes referencing previous songs, don’t really add anything substantial to the album after the first few minutes. Some listeners may enjoy the lengthy mournful, hazy 'The Dying Stars', but others may dismiss it as self-indulgent guitar noodling. For anyone open-minded enough to give 'Superfluity' multiple listens, Jonathan Segel does provide musical subtleties and changes of direction that one might miss the first time around." (Kimberly Bright, pennyblackmusic.co.uk)

Jonathan Segel, vocals, guitars, keyboards, violin, bass
Kelly Atkins, vocals
Sanna Olsson, vocals
Mattias Olsson, drums
Chris Pedersen, drums
Andreas Axelsson, drums
Mats Burman, bass (tracks 9 & 16)
Stian Grimstad, trombone (tracks 11 & 14)

Jonathan Segel
is a composer, performer and multi-instrumentalist.

He plays guitar, violin, computer, keyboards, electric bass and sings.

Born in Marseilles, France, grew up in Davis, California (with a year's side trip to Tucson, AZ.), went to college at the University of California at Santa Cruz (BA 1985), studying music with Gordon Mumma and Peter Elsea, and myth and language with Norman O. Brown. ​

In Santa Cruz he hooked up with Camper Van Beethoven, apparently for life. He moved up to San Francisco in 1989, then to Los Angeles in 1997 to work for Dane Davis at Danetracks, a film sound post production facility, then back to Oakland in 2001, where received a Master's Degree in Music Composition at Mills College (MA 2003), studying with Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran, and Joelle Leandre.

While in Santa Cruz in the 1980s, he played with Camper Van Beethoven, Eugene Chadbourne and various other musical projects, while in San Francisco in the 1990s with Sideways, Virginia Dare, Granfaloon Bus, Dieselhed and his own band Hieronymus Firebrain, which dissolved and reformed as Jack & Jill, which later led to various records of rock music under his own name ever since. ​

While in Los Angeles, besides playing and recording with Eugene Chadbourne, he played with Clyde Wrenn (as Clyde Wrenn and the Container), with Mike Marrt's Beaumont, occaisonal shows with Mark Goodman's group, Magnet, and spent a great deal of time touring the globe with Mark Linkous' group, Sparklehorse.

Returning to the Bay Area in 2001, Jonathan began playing rock shows with his own eponymous band, as well as a newly reformed and revitalized Camper Van Beethoven. He has made several guitar-centric rock music CDs since then and has performed this music in scattered California shows, including opening slots for such acts as Built To Spill (he has also sat in with Built To Spill and Yo La Tengo onstage as a violinist!) and occasional solo acoustic shows .

In 2004 Camper Van Beethoven recorded a new studio album, "New Roman Times", their first in 15 years, and a then put out a Greatest Hits package in 2009 ("Popular Songs of Great Enduring Strength and Beauty"), both followed by much touring in the United States and Europe, which continues to this day. A new CD of Camper Van Beethoven music arrived in early 2013, "La Costa Perdida" and its companion CD, "El Camino Real" in 2014. Camper van Beethoven continues to tour, usually with David Lowery's other band, Cracker.

In addition to all of this, leaving Los Angeles and the film and music industries and studying at Mills College led Jonathan back to the world of improvisation and electronic music, and he has been performing improvised music for instruments and computer around the world, including shows in the SF Bay Area, New York, Europe and Japan.

2003 saw the CD release of several improv collaborations with notable artists such as ​Fred Frith​ and Joelle Leandre, and with Shoko Hikage, and the first of many electronic music CDs. In 2004, after various shows as both a rock and an improvising duo with Dina Emerson, Chaos Butterfly formed and began recording and touring. Several CDs have been produced worldwide, as well as performances in the US and Europe with many collaborators. Chaos Butterfly is now a moniker for Jonathan performing electronic or otherwise avant-garde improv with a host of other potential musicians.

In 2012 Jonathan relocated to Stockholm, Sweden with his family, where he currently resides. Here he has been sitting in with bands such as The Plastic Pals, and even Gösta Berlings Saga, recording his own albums and with others, including Sista Maj, Astral Magic, as well as recording, mixing and performing with the Øresund Space Collective from Copenhagen, and ongoing projects with Mattias Olsson of Roth Händle Studios and Hasse Horrigmoe of Norway's Tangle Edge.

This album contains no booklet.