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Never Enough Hope is the brainchild of Chicago-based composer/improviser Tobin Summerfield, who regularly plays alongside folks such as Frank Rosaly, Aram Shelton, Jaimie Branch, Keefe Jackson, Fred Lonberg-Holm, and many others. Summerfield's aesthetic employs the entire spectrum of the diverse groups he contributes to, moving from the collective voice of rock, post-rock and punk; New York No Wave minimalist/maximalist extremes; joyful big band theatricality; highly orchestrated new music soundscapes; and powerful, dense, freewheeling improvised music to lush, thick polytonal/polyrhythmic textures.

Never Enough Hope is the synthesis of Summerfield's outlook: the emotional immediacy of free music matched and balanced by the satisfaction derived from great composed music. The Gift Economy, Never Enough Hope's Contraphonic debut, is born of Summerfield's desire to harness all these experiences into one unit. Utilizing both rock and free-music idioms into the orchestration, which takes shape in the form of a 20-piece ensemble featuring scores of saxophones, vibraphones, and violins, mingling with guitar, bass, trumpets, and dual drum kits, it's in the precise voicing of every individual instrument that gives Never Enough Hope its weight.

Summerfield composes with each member of the ensemble in mind--player, improviser, and composer--all their unique voices represented. The musicians in Never Enough Hope are Summerfield's peers, heroes and teachers. The songs and experiences that inspire the pieces featured on The Gift Economy are born of its constituents. Never Enough Hope is like a family reunion, and an all-star team.