Storm And Stress
Under Thunder and Fluorescent Light
Touch And Go
The guitar plucks, quickly ripples a melody, pauses… The percussion skitters and scatters like sporadic dominos. The bass raises its head from beneath the waves again and again, offering up surges of melody before diving again. Vocal styles include muttered scraps (on “It Takes A Million Years to Become Diamonds So Let’s Burn Like Coal Until The Sky’s Black”) or touchingly sung step stool reaching falsetto (“O, When My Lady Comes”). Many-legged insects trip through the strings while a winged flock beats their wings against the percussion.
Quiet excursions in free jazz from a Chicago/New York trio that includes Ian Williams of Don Caballero. There are a few guest musicians involved at times, but primarily, it’s just this trio. Some studio involvement is used to good effect, such as turning the mics on and off during the quiet yet dense drumming on “1st,” but for the most part, this is pure playing.
This is an attempt to devolve a bit in order to re-structure in a different fashion. Intentionally forgetting the formulas so as to find fresh approaches to re-assembling music without ever turning to outright noise. Wonderfully alien at times, but always staying within the borders of fascinating listenability.
They are venturing down to Eyedrum in Atlanta on April 11, and I’m very excited to see this played live.
Touch and Go, P.O. Box 25520, Chicago, IL 60625
