Listen to more music at pcmunoz.bandcamp.com

BIO/LATEST PROJECTS

Praise for Physical Science:

"PC Muñoz's 'Physical Science' is an engaging and inventive soundtrack for the chaos, conflict and questions America currently faces day in and day out. It's about observation, analysis and transcending complex issues such as race, nationality and economic disparity. One only needs to glance at current news headlines to understand the macro view Muñoz explores. Percussion is at the heart of the album, encompassing both the core instrumentation and Muñoz's rhythmic vocal approach. The album pulses through anger, concern, hope, and determination. It's a soulful, reality-based journey conscious individuals will glean insight and inspiration from."
Anil Prasad, Innerviews, the Web's first and longest-running music magazine

"PC Muñoz is not like other drummers. Sure, he makes his drums waltz and tango; and also performs a myriad of other dances on his drums. But he can also make the instrument do what it has done for ages: he can make them talk. Listening to 'Physical Science', one will be awestruck at how the calculated and the primordially elemental comes together in a songful manner. Mr Muñoz (is) a fascinating percussion colourist and a very astute manipulator of rhythmic textures…each percussion instrument when beaten, stroked and caressed seems to recite its own poetry…"
Raul da Gama, Jazzdagama.com
Complete review here.

"All of the tracks on 'Physical Science' utilize artfully arranged acoustic and synthesized sounds...this digital-only album from a highly inventive artist will move listeners and inspire musicians to seek new sources of sounds and inspiration."
Barbara Schultz, Electronic Musician

"I imagine PC Muñoz broadcasting these songs and poems in the post-apocalypse: a loving badass wanderer documenting matters of love and devastation, history by heartbeat. He stops to taste the earth, buy a faded lottery ticket with no chance to win, looking not backwards but forwards for the ancestors. Lend him your ears: there is no better use for them."
Bao Phi, 2018 Caldecott Medal winner, award-winning poet/spoken-word artist

"Against a musical bed that seamlessly incorporates hip-hop, jazz, industrial, and percolating, sinewy electronic flourishes, just for starters, PC Muñoz's 'Physical Science' is a powerful state-of-now musical work. Cinematic in musical scope and feel, it molds autobiographical lyric detail into biting commentary on identity (race, class, family; what it means to be American and "of color,") and the volatile moment we're all trying to live through with as much heart and humanity intact as possible. John Donne and Chuck D. are among the cultural stalwarts who get shout-outs as Muñoz wrestles with what it means (as son, husband, father, friend, artist) to live in an empire on its last legs. Best track in the impressive collection: 'Who Will Bury Me?'--- a sparse, wrenching hymn in which Bryan Dyer mournfully croons the title over and over. It's impossible not to think of the parents of the countless Black and Brown youth who've been slain by the police (who are not held accountable) and those who almost daily have to bury children who've been victim of some mass school shooting. Muñoz and Dyer distill that unfathomable grief to its essence, and the result is harrowing art."
Ernest Hardy, author of "Bloodbeats Vol.1: Demos, Remixes, & Extended Versions", PEN America Beyond Margins Award Winner, LA Weekly critic

"Once again, PC has presided over a marriage of acoustic and electronic instruments and effects that not only desegregates them, but eliminates any divisive prejudice against either. In the process, he makes good music and conveys vital messages, effecting an electro-acoustic buzz throughout the listener's nervous system."
Jeff Kaliss, jazz/classical music writer, author of the definitive Sly Stone biography "I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly Stone"

"The fluidity of this funky creation/disintegration story is mesmerizing. PC Muñoz's new work dives deep into nonlinear grooves of truth, sound, and breath that refuse to be tamed or named."
Arlene Biala, 2015 American Book Award winner, 2016-2018 Santa Clara County Poet Laureate

"PC Muñoz's 'Physical Science' is everything I need when it comes to music -- mature, relevant, and on time!"
Keith Knight, Gentleman Cartoonist

"PC Muñoz's new album and chapbook will transform how you see and hear the complex beauty of our postmodern world."
Craig Santos Perez, 2015 American Book Award winner, poet, essayist, 2011 PEN Center USA Literary Award winner

"It would be too easy to describe PC Muñoz's musicianship as virtuosic, disciplined, daring, and brave. Muñoz is not easy. His music, and his approach to it, forces us to reckon with ideas outside of the realm of music. From the bluesy, haunting, almost prison work song voice of Brian Dyer on 'Who Will Bury Me?' to 'Big Winner's' woozy calliope sounds, 'Physical Science' is not only among Muñoz's best, it is deserving of your full immersion into the aural world he has created."
-Shawn Taylor, author of "People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm" for the 33 1/3 series and "Big Black Penis: Misadventures in Race and Masculinity"

San Francisco drummer/recording artist PC Muñoz returns with Physical Science, a suite of new drum-and-text-driven compositions characterized by art-funk rhythms, experimental electronics, jazz-informed improvisation, and lyrics that deal with America's darkest open secrets. Physical Science is a digital only release with a companion chapbook, Inside Pocket of a Houndstooth Blazer sent out with every download. Download the album NOW by visiting this link!

PC Muñoz's genre-defying projects are stylistically broad and deep, revealing a sonic explorer equally at home with contemporary classical, funk, hip-hop, folk, world music, poetry, free jazz, art installations, and modern dance productions. His singular compositional and performing style bridges the gap between pop songforms, jazz-informed improvisation, aleatoric processes of the avant-garde, and the insistent rhythms of funk. Muñoz's partnership with composer/cellist/longtime Kronos Quartet member Joan Jeanrenaud has yielded three highly acclaimed projects: the GRAMMY®-nominated Strange Toys, the iTunes-charting Pop-Pop, and the art-inspired Visual Music. A frequent collaborator, PC has also recorded and/or performed with rock legend Jackson Browne, dream-pop poet/chanteuse Ingrid Chavez, Prince and the Revolution synth wizard Dr. Fink, guitar sorcerer Karl Evangelista, sonic surrealists Broun Fellinis, woodwinds renegade Kyle Bruckmann, Oakland emcee/pianist phenom Kev Choice, vocalist Jennifer Kreisberg of the legendary Native American group Ulali, Emmy-winning composer/virtuoso Van-Anh Vanessa Vo , jaw-dropping cellist Alex Kelly, drumming great Scott Amendola, metal vocalist AC Way, experimental composer/guitarist Zachary James Watkins, and countless other musicians and recording artists.

PC's notable multidisciplinary collaborations include ongoing iterations of the multiracial identity exploration piece HALF-BREED, the award-winning Ir-Rational, 2012's Fall of a Sudden project in Hong Kong, 2008's public art installation Light Haiku with kinetic sculptor Chris Eckert, 2005's award-winning project Twenty Haiku, and ongoing performances with Vadim Puyandaev and Erika Tsimbrovsky of Avy-K Productions.

PC began his career in the early 90s as an R&B/Gospel drummer and indie producer, while teaching elementary school by day. In 1998 he launched a solo artist/label entrepreneur career, releasing his acclaimed debut solo disc, The Trouble I'd Bring You on his own label, Beevine Records. Beevine also released 2002's CMJ-charting A Good Deed in a Weary World, 2004's Golden State mash-note California, and 2005's Twenty Haiku. In 2005, PC delved further into production and artist development, co-founding the unique record label/private recording studio entity Talking House Productions with Seagate CEO Steve Luczo and 5 close music industry colleagues. The Talking House facility was later re-christened Studio Trilogy and hosted everyone from Bay Area emerging artists to pop mega-stars like Lady Gaga, T.I., and will.i.am. PC now works out of various studios in the Bay Area.

PC was a Board Governor for the SF Chapter of the Recording Academy from 2015-2018. Academy members may connect at the GrammyPro site; interested music professionals should visit grammypro.com/join to learn about joining.

SELECTED PRESS QUOTES
"PC Muñoz is an artist that knows no boundaries. His output straddles myriad genres, influences and art forms. From funk to classical, pop to hip-hop, experimental to jazz, globally-renowned artists in all these realms consider Muñoz a first-call percussionist, producer, composer, and songwriter. He's also an artist with a deep social conscience -- one who who uses music to connect cultures and communities together."
Anil Prasad, Innerviews

"There's a reason why we keep bringing PC Muñoz and his ensembles back to perform year after year. PC is a musical mastermind with an agenda: exploring the totality of funk and blues, and digging into the locations where they intersect other parts of the culture in the most compelling ways. At a recent show, they electrified the crowd by walking that elusive line between laser-focused intricacy and the loose, rangy freedom of the groove. Stripped down yet never simple, his work decodes the world's secret messages and delivers them to the gut, the heart, and the mind."
Sean Carson, Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive

"Dark, sexual, sensual, confessional, and confrontational--all at the same time...a poet."
Performing Songwriter

"Somewhere between hip-hop attitude, Minneapolis nasty and Latin Rock playa chops, PC Muñoz has an instantly compelling sound that defies definition..."
Rickey Vincent, author of Funk: The Music, The People, and The Rhythm of the One, and host of KPFA's "The History of Funk" radio show

"(PC Muñoz) is truly a modern musician, equally at home with a live band, playing the most organic of instruments...or hunched over a computer, making beats and working magic with ProTools..."
Tom Chandler, East Bay Express

"Great work. It's all too rare to hear someone breaking new ground in the pop field."
John Zorn, Composer/Iconoclast

"... PC Muñoz consistently redefine(s) himself, sailing effortlessly across artistic categories..."
Marian Liu, San José Mercury News

"PC Muñoz has the true feel of classic Detroit funk, with the added art sense of the Bay Area. A mad combo to beat!"
Stevie Salas, solo artist, guitarist extraordinaire (George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart), executive producer of Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World