Knot My Soul is an electronic piano trio featuring: William A. Thompson, IV (p), Carlos Santistevan (b), and Milton Villarrubia, III (d). Carlos and Milton met and started playing improvised music in 1998 in Santa Fe, New Mexico and they have since been working with wide range of musicians in various ensembles for over a decade. Milton met William Thompson when the two were studying at The University of New Orleans in the Jazz Studies program in 2001. While Thompson and Villarrubia were working on their degrees at UNO, Carlos founded the nonprofit arts organization and record label, High Mayhem in Santa Fe, New Mexico. When Will was sent to Iraq in 2004 he created his seminal work, Baghdad Music Journal, which received critical acclaim and eventually featured Thompson as a composer/artist on BBC, NPR and Signal To Noise. Baghdad Music Journal duly received this attention because it was historically the first CD that was composed, recorded and released while the soldier was still in the combat theater. This CD was originally released on High Mayhem through collaboration between Will and Carlos via months of email and snail mail communications. In the summer of 2007 the three finally got to play together at Milton’s wedding celebration where the three participated in a “bachelor recording session” the week preceding the wedding day. In early 2008, the newly named Knot My Soul did a southern tour of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Cumulatively, these three musicians have either played with, or shared the stage with such artists as: James Singleton, Cassandra Wilson, Alvin Fielder, Ed Petersen, John Vidacovich, Jason Marsalis, Mark Dresser, Tatsuya Nakatani, HEALTH, Lightning Bolt, Roscoe Mitchell, Kidd Jordan, JA Deane, Dub Trio, Rob Brown, Maurice Brown, Andrew Baham, Jesse Lewis, Myra Melford, Slavic Soul Party, Peter Bernstein, Chris Sevrin, Tony Dagradi and John Hollenbeck. Now it’s 2010 and Knot My Soul has created a completely new body of original material for their second southern tour and will be playing:
Summer 2010 Tour
06/04 – Santa Fe, New Mexico @ High Mayhem Studio
06/06 – Houston Texas @ The Resident Interval Series
06/08 – New Orleans, Louisiana @The Dragon’s Den
06/09 – New Orleans Louisiana @ Bachanal
06/10- Red Stick, Louisiana @ Northgate Tavern
06/11 – Jackson, Mississippi @ 121 Studio
06/12 – Dallas Texas @ Tex Gallery