by Charlie WilmothThe Nommonsemble is the brainchild of New York free jazz drummer Whit Dickey, who played with the David S. Ware Quartet in the mid-90s and has led projects released on the AUM Fidelity and Wobbly Rail labels. The rest of the Nommonsemble includes pianist Matthew Shipp, violist Mat Maneri and alto saxophonist and flautist Rob Brown. Each of the four musicians had played with some of the others in various combinations before the Nommonsemble was formed: Dickey and Maneri played on Shipp's 1997 effort Flow Of X, for example, while Brown played on Dickey's Transonic and some early Shipp albums. But the Nommonsemble's 2001 debut Life Cycle was the first time these players had ever recorded together as a quartet.