Ultimo Maximo is an album of instrumental music and sound from percussionist/multi-instrumentalist Luke Brevoort. His debut solo release following six years with Flotation Walls, the album is the result of a three-year experiment of creative work in isolation. The album was composed, performed, recorded and mixed solely by the artist with no outside input.


1. Occiddyseus IN WHICH ULTIMO, leading ship and crew through pre-Columbian South America, variously bests the Cyclops of the Isthmus, the Witch of the Cordillera and the giant sirens of the Amazon delta. Triumphant, he rides a red tide to the sea.

2. The Plagiarist
 IN WHICH ULTIMO, an infamous source of facsimile academic works, leads authorities on a chase through a labyrinth of nightclubs, at one point synchronizing with his men. He is trapped at the top of a skyscraper, from which - after a moment's hesitation - he leaps.

3. Climb the Switchback IN WHICH ULTIMO, finding himself a laborer in a mine deep within a mountain, is obliged to carry a great quantity of ore on his back up a steep road in the glittering dark. Achieving the rim as the sun breaks over the horizon, he sees the great structure to which his labor is contributing. He raises his voice to join in the machinists' hymn.

4. Row the Aurora
 IN WHICH ULTIMO, on the shore of a great northern lake, boards a tiny vessel and paddles out among the towering icebergs. The Aurora appears overhead, then bends down to the water, lifting the icebergs into the sky, Ultimo along with them.

5. Laurentide Interlude
 IN WHICH ULTIMO, overlooking the same lake (its surface now unbroken), plays piper to great waves, which freeze in place around him as they crash against the cliff.

6. Flood Dreamer
 IN WHICH ULTIMO, an unwitting Appalachian Deucalion, sleeps on a raft as it tumbles pluckily through rapids before coming to rest in a reservoir. Rain begins as he drifts peacefully, but the wind picks up and the waves lap at the weakened dam, which suddenly bursts, releasing a deluge of immeasurable force into the valley below, Ultimo riding its head, asleep all the while.

7. Gilgamesh (Orogeny)
 IN WHICH ULTIMO, tilling his field on a great plain, is suddenly thrust upward as a volcano forms beneath his feet. Leaping across fissures, dodging Pyroclasts and outrunning rivers of magma, he scrambles down the fast-growing slope and flings himself to the ground at the foot of the new mountain.

8. Orbitor IN WHICH ULTIMO, orbiting the Earth amid detritus composed of studio instruments from the 1970s, plays the bass guitar and Rhodes piano in mourning for an unseen love as his oxygen runs out.

9. Enkidu (Erosion) IN WHICH ULTIMO, newly possessed of great wealth on his tropical estate, is plagued by passing moods as he is pursued by a group of women in various settings. He escapes to his private seaplane for a moment of despair before returning to dance with each suitress in turn.

10. Into the Bayou of Meaning
 IN WHICH ULTIMO, plodding through a swamp of great symbolism, meets several silent beings of geometric association. Having been gifted a shape by each, he assembles the objects into an arrangement that reveals his origin: and he has broken the spell.

11. Rhodus IN WHICH ULTIMO, now free from the hand that thrust him into episode after episode of adventure, floats in some unidentifiable place as a shapeless form of light. No longer troubled by worlds past, present or future, he fades and is gone.