Creatures of Prometheus are a Twin Cities-based music improv ensemble consisting of a multigenerational murga of very busy and expensive local musicians who like to make up songs in front of groups of people who are listening to them play while they are drinking, taking drugs, and eating food with their friends and strangers. Sometimes they’ll start to play a song that already has been played before, and it ends up being something else. Sometimes they’ll play a whole song that has already been played before, but not quite like this. They do not plan on recording any albums, but you are most welcome to come record them live, both in your memories and your memory machines.

Live video:

Creatures of Prometheus live

https://spaces.hightail.com/space/66pb6mZbrk

Creatures of Prometheus-

Musicians for The White Squirrel, Saturday, May 18^th, 2024:

Alma Engebretson (bass):

Alma Engebretson is a Minneapolis-based cellist, bassist, guitarist, and composer. Alma has been involved in several projects coming out of the pandemic including forming a new rock group, Mr. Zipp, playing cello in Superbus Maximus, playing cello in Open Eye Theatre’s Once Upon a Winter’s Night, and playing cello in the annual Morricone tribute show at Jazz Central Studios. Alma’s longer-haul projects include fronting rock band Mr. Zipp, playing guitar in D’Lakes, and being one of the five members of twin cities-based jazz group, SPACE, who have performed and recorded in the Twin Cities for the past five years. Alma has also played cello in Curtiss A’s annual John Lennon tribute show for the past eight years. In 2020, Alma earned their Bachelor of Music degree in cello performance from the University of Denver. In their spare time, Alma enjoys roller skating, skiing, and weaving on their loom.

music; rooted in jazz, yet encompassing not-so closely related worlds in a unique, and

Chris Cunningham (guitars):

Over a career stretching all the way from the Pleistocene era to this one, Chris Cunningham has collaborated on stages and in studios with Marianne Faithfull, The Contortions, John Lurie, Jeff Buckley, Haiti’s Boukman Eksperyans, Turkey’s Omar Farouk, Ireland’s Katell Keineg and Gavin Friday, Anton Fier, John Zorn, Marshall Crenshaw, Joan Osborne, John Medeski, Richie Havens, and many others. He has released two critically acclaimed solo albums, and his Twin Cities groups include and have included Superbus Maximus, Fall of the House of Usher, Mississippi Peace, Coloring Time, Improvestra, Improvised Explosive Device, to name just a few. His main repository of recorded musical content is at fothou.com, and he dutifully serves the people of Minnesota as the professor and confessor of Sound Arts at Minneapolis College.

Alec Tonjes (drums):

Alec Tonjes doesn’t just play music. He embodies music. It engulfs him and he engulfs it, to the point at which you cannot tell which part is music and which part be-eth Alec! Oh ho, ho he ha! It is a sight to BEHOLD. NO REFUNDS

Bryan Murray (saxes):

Bryan Murray is a musician and artist who recently transplanted to Apple Valley, MN after 20 years on the NYC music scene.  Bryan gained both renown and notoriety with his “avant country” band Bryan and the Haggards, focused on the songwriting of country music legend Merle Haggard.  He has also been a regular sideman on other projects including Moppa Elliott’s Unspeakable Garbage and Jon Lundbom’s Big Five Chord, and had the opportunity to join the “Love This Giant” tour with David Byrne and St. Vincent.  His latest musical projects utilize a modified saxophone of his own creation and are recorded under the pseudonym Balto Exclamationpoint.

Tarek Abdelqader (drums):

Tarek Abdelqader is a Saint Paul-based multi-instrumentalist and composer. Abdelqader has performed and recorded his own work as a 2018 Cedar Commissions artist and 2019 MRAC Next Step recipient. He has performed and recorded with local and international artists including Purple Funk Metropolis, Chastity Brown, J.S. Ondara, Boyish, Mr. Zipp, Freaque, Goon Tribune and multitudes more. Abdelqader works as an accompanist at schools and dance companies throughout the Metro, including the Barbara Barker Center for Dance, Ananya Dance Theater, and Limón Dance Company.

Matty Harris (saxes):

Matty Harris has tooted a lot of tooters in the Midwest, on the West Coast, and in Kathmandu with a wide variety of jazz-adjacent, prog-rock and wacky free-improvisation ensembles.  Matty is the bandleader of Nick’s Cousins and DOUBLE SEPTET and currently plays with Gold Minefield, Current Physique, The Real Chuck Norad, Brass Messengers, Troux Bloux and Excessive.