Unfolding: A Conversation with Lesley Mok and Phillip Golub on Dream Brigade

In an age where the romanticized façades and angered “hot takes” of social media dominate the interpersonal, meaningful relationships- platonic, professional, or otherwise – are a treasured rarity. Paradoxically, those connections are essential for societal improvement and the existence of a robust community. Why should one care about social change if they have no reason to care for others to begin with? If we are but pixels and words, empathy becomes extinct. Our technology crudely trades convenience and speed for substance. Art uniquely cuts through the vapidity of communication because of its unique capacity to tap into something deeper – the human soul. But, even there, market forces and personal conflicts often get in the way. Meaningful human relationships take time, and so does the fluency of musical communications. An acknowledgment of this fact sets apart Lesley Mok and Phillip Golub’s duo recording, Dream Brigade (Infrequent Seams, 2024).

As two young artists – both in their early thirties – pianist Golub and percussionist Mok easily could have taken Dream Brigade as an opportunity to show off, to prove themselves. Or they could have allowed their egos to control. Mok has been an in-demand percussionist for both legends like William Parker and Kenny Barron and contemporary masters like Mary Halvorson and Myra Melford. Golub has provided his keys to Cecil McBee and transcribed music for Wayne Shorter. The temptation for self-aggrandizement is particularly easy on a record like Dream Brigade, where improvisation and individualized interpretation take a central role.

Instead, both artists essentially surrender to the music. They less force their creation towards a particular predetermined direction and more rely on their real-life friendship and collaborative nature, which slowly developed over the years, to allow the music to naturally infiltrate the recording. 

Consequently, the melodic and harmonic elements of the drums and the rhythmic aspects of the piano are given greater freedom to come to the fore. The instrumental voices, at times, blur the core structural components of Western music. The result is moments of paradoxical wonder like the hues of an intimately serene “Darn that Dream” turning increasingly punctuated; exuding a jagged elegance. Or the urgent scattering of “Tunneled Throat,” which provides both a flurry of tones even as it envelopes them with space and silence.  And key to it all is a trust and shared interest cultivated between the two musicians and an openness to see where both shall lead.

Ultimately, Golub and Mok’s approach of dedicating themselves to their craft and following wherever its compass dictates allows statements of the type only master artists can create. Those of introspection, deep reflection, wonder, and empathy. Dream Brigade burns down the status quo while marching forward.

PostGenre (PG): Where did the name Dream Brigade come from?

Lesley Mok: Oh gosh. Well, we went through a very lengthy process to decide what we wanted to call ourselves. We’ve been playing for maybe three years, but it wasn’t until we were putting this record together that we decided we should have a name. For me, Dream Brigade felt like the right sentiment. It reflects how our music is rigorously composed but also has improvised moments and sounds. Our music together is very much of the moment. The name Dream Brigade encapsulated that spectrum for me while also capturing a sense of both nobleness and playfulness. On top of that, Phillip and I not only work together in a musical context; we have also done a fair amount of organizing together over the last couple of months. So, it felt fitting to me when we landed on the name. 

PG: The two of you met while you were both in Boston for school, but you didn’t collaborate until 2021. What led to your collaboration? 

Philip Golub (PCG): Yes, Lesley went to Berklee [College of Music] while I was at  New England Conservatory. We were down the street from each other in parallel, but often quite separate, universes. But we met socially towards the end of our times at school through a mutual friend. We also both moved to New York shortly after the pandemic, when people started to get together again. And we got together to play and started doing a couple of concerts and this recording. 

PG: On the record, you have not only original pieces but two covers – of “Darn that Dream” and of George Shearing’s “Conception.”  What was behind the idea of tackling standards on the record?

LM: Yeah, it’s interesting. ’cause, I don’t think I’ve recorded a standard before. Certainly not on a project where I’m a co-leader or leader. They ended up on the record by accident, in a way. Phillip and I were warming up in the [recording] studio, and to do so, Phillip was playing a standard – I think it was “Darn that Dream” – and I ended up playing along with him. Something about playing the song together connected with the improvisation work we were doing. It felt like it could work with our other music. And later, he played “Conception,” which is one of my favorite standards. As we were later listening to the hours of improvised music we recorded, we found a place for those two standards in a way that felt very natural. Since we both come from jazz, we have both played standards a lot, so it felt fitting to have them.

PCG: In our shows and our planning for future recordings, we have started to incorporate our own compositions. We like to rather fluidly bring our own sensibility, which includes a freedom that I think is shared across in standards from jazz or whatever you want to call it, and find ways to make it all feel the same as our sound. The specific material doesn’t matter much in terms of what we do together. 

PG: This, in a way, brings up questions on whether there is a line between composition and improvisation. Do you see a significant difference between improvisation and composition?

LM: We were talking about this very recently, and I think what we got to is that while the improvisation and precomposition are different in practice, in most other ways, they’re the same thing. Improvisation is composition, just in real-time. There is composition when you’re freely improvising in the language built around your existing reference points. For me, there’s very little difference between improvisation and composition. 

PCG: Yeah, I would say that in practice there are differences between the two. But at the core, they are cut from the same cloth. They’re the same thing, just with different time scales. People often say that improvisation is real-time composition. And I have experienced that. But another way to think about it is that composition is very slow improvisation. The word composition etymologically literally means putting stuff together. I think people often think of composition as something more structured and more refined than improvisation. But, to me, composition is simply the process of putting stuff together, and that stuff comes from improvisation. 

LM: We have a friend, Zachariah, who puts it in a way that I greatly like. He says that composition is finding the right instruction to communicate your musical priorities. I think, in many cases, the differences that people have made between composition and improvisation have a lot to do with legibility and having something on paper. But the reality is that instruction can also be verbal, and that process does not make it any less of a composition. And the various ways that information is communicated can make it feel even more fluid. 

PG: But in terms of precomposition, you both tend to write specifically for the musicians involved. Across the record, silence and space often take a prominent role, especially on a song like “Invisible Ink.” Do you see silence itself as another compositional voice when you are writing? 

LM: Certainly. I think what’s fun about the spaces that we land up in together is that they feel very dynamic to me. In addition to places with a lot of space, we also land in super-dense spaces as well. I think it takes a lot of trust to change environments like that. I think that’s one of the things I appreciate the most about working together; that we have a lot of musical trust. We also have a lot of shared reference points. I think we can get into the spaces because we have a shared kind of compositional language, and both value space and silence as well as the denser sections.

PCG: Yeah. When we were on tour last fall, it was a lot of fun to be in the car together because we would each choose to play records that, more often than not, we both had as a shared reference point. These were not famous or commonly known recordings. And some of those recordings make more use of space than your average jazz canon. I think that is something that we both value as composers. Though, if I were my own, I feel that when I’m composing, I try to fill space and don’t use silence enough. That is a critique I have of my own compositions, but I think when improvising I’m able to access that use of space and silence more immediately. 

PG: In terms of your shared reference points, you both have a background in using alternative tunings. Phillip’s Loop 7 (Greyfade, 2025) uses a twenty-two note per octave tuning system album, and Lesley is part of Anna Webber’s Shimmer Wince, which uses Just Intonation. Are alternative tunings another commonality between the two of you that shaped Dream Brigade at all, even if it is using equal temperament? 

LM: We haven’t talked about it yet. I think Phillip and I talk a lot about things like the acoustic resonance of the piano and of the drums more than specific tuning systems. So, on a piece like “Invisible Ink,” we are playing less with a focus on tunings specifically and more on how our instruments are ultimately two percussion instruments and look into how we can make resonance, decay, and reverberant touch speak. While I love music in other tunings as well, I think that for the instrumentation we’re working with, something in Just Intonation doesn’t necessarily have another instrument as a reference point. But in equal temperament, your ear gravitates towards a certain tension and resolution, and harmonic context. 

PCG: Leslie and I have both used pitches outside of equal temperament in our own compositions. You mentioned Loop 7, which is a project of mine. I also have another album that will come out in a year or so that’s a whole microtonal jazz thing. Alternate tunings are a big side of what I do, and I keep getting deeper and deeper into it. But in this project, as Leslie said, we’re dealing with the resonance of the acoustic piano which, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand is tuned in equal temperament. It’s quite a big deal to retune the piano. 

PG: Lesley mentioned how you both play percussion instruments. Do you see this duo as two percussionists working together?

PCG: Absolutely. 

LM: Yeah, I feel like we’re a percussion duo. And It’s a lot of fun to get into spaces together. We try to push against both the way that percussion can feel in so many different tones and colors and the limitations of percussion. For instance, if Philip is holding out a note and I wanna ring out a note with him, I might try to see the ways I can make the drums feel like it’s resonating beyond the natural decay of the instrument so that we can reach that space. I feel that the perceived limitations of a percussion duo are what makes this duo particularly fun. 

PG: When putting together the album, did you draw inspiration from other piano drum duos? For example, Marilyn Crispell and Tyshawn Sorey. 

PCG: To be honest, no. I’m familiar with that record. I’ve heard it a few times. There are several piano-drum duos out that I have listened to and think Lesley has heard as well. But, as Lesley said, we’re not a piano-drum duo for the sake of being a piano-drum duo. We’re two people who are interested in each other’s musicality and musical sensibilities. We just happen to play the piano and the drums. So, while what other people have done with our instrumentation is an important thing to be aware of, we’re not explicitly responding to or building on what they have done. 

PG: As a final question, what do you enjoy most about working together?

LM: There are many things I enjoy about working with Phillip. But I think I particularly appreciate the patience he’s given to sit in the spaces and put in the development that it takes to create a musical bond together. I think often the process of actually developing the music can be very rushed. But we have been working at a pace that feels very comfortable for me. 

I also think that, to some degree, the process of recording comes with its own anxieties because of how the music will be forever documented once it is released. We had been playing together for almost three years by the time we recorded. We always enjoyed playing together, but there was always a question of how recording might change things. Questions had to be answered about what kind of material would be on the record and how we would present as a duo. We had a lot of conversations about music. But we also wanted to allow the process to unfold at the pace it needed to or that felt most comfortable has been something I very much appreciate. 

PCG: If I could sum up our working together in one word, it would be collaborative. It truly feels collaborative in every sense. We have a lot of mutual respect, and even the business side of things feels very collaborative. It is very easy to work with Lesley. 

Often, in 2025, we musicians are rushed to produce work and get it out. What Lesley said about how we take our time is very important, and it’s hard to find people who are willing to do that. Many people start to get frustrated after a few sessions or a few rehearsals if there isn’t an obvious path forward. I’ve never felt that with Lesley. We’re always on a path moving forward, and that’s what matters. And our music ends up being so much deeper and richer because of it. And it feels like our work as a duo thus far is the beginning of something we might be doing for a long time. The duo might not be the main project for either of us at any given time, but I feel like it will ultimately lead to several records and tours. And as we do those things, we will grow and get deeper in our musical conversation, which is a rarity. Often projects fizzle and never happen again, but I don’t see that happening for our duo performances. 

LM: Part of that vitality is also from the fact that with time, we have continued to evolve. We went on a tour in October [of 2024], where we were freely improvising the entire time. But now that we have been writing some compositions and have been playing a couple of standards, I feel like we are looking for different spaces. I think we’re challenging ourselves to grow and deepen in terms of compositions. And maybe next year, we will decide to change course and freely improvise again. But it feels very rewarding to take the time and watch how things unfold. 

‘Dream Brigade’ will be available on Infrequent Seams on March 14, 2025. It can be purchased on Bandcamp. More information on Lesley Mok and Phillip Golub can be found on their respective websites.

Photo credit: Tarishi Gupta