Tag: Jazz

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Flip You for Real: Am I Crazy?

Bear with me for a second here… A couple of years ago, my friend and longtime skateboarding partner Greg Siegfried lent me the Thelonius Monk documentary, Straight, No Chaser (1988). Wait, let me back up: I’ve watched The Usual Suspects (1995) dozens of times. It’s one of those heist movies that rewards you with something new upon repeated viewings. So, while watching the Thelonius Monk joint, I saw a scene that freaked me out in its similarity to a scene in The Usual Suspects. Benicio Del Toro’s character, Fred Fenster, talks in an English so broken as to be blurred with a day of beers. During the interrogation montage early in the film, which serves to introduce “the usual suspects,” Del Toro seems to be channeling Thelonius Monk. I have embedded both clips below so you can assure me that I’m not crazy.

Thelonius Monk [runtime: 0:28]:


The Usual Suspects [runtime: 0:11]:


So, am I crazy? Does anyone know if Benicio Del Toro was deliberately channeling Thelonius Monk for this role? It flips me for real.

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Matthew Shipp / Knives From Heaven: Heavy Meta

In the 1980s, professional skateboarder Mark Gonzales used to disappear from media coverage for months at a time and every time he would return, he’d introduce the next, new trick. Once it was the kickflip, once the the stalefish, but he always set off a new trend. Antipop Consortium have cut a similar path. Their records are few and far between, but they always bump the bar a bit higher than it was before. Their 2002 record Arrhythmia (Warp) set the tone for 21st century metaphysical Hip-hop, and after a seven-year hiatus, Fluorescent Black (Big Dada, 2009) re-established what had been lost on heads in the meantime. Oddly abrasive to your expectations and undeniably smart in their creation are the way they work. Intelligent, innovative, and insightful are the watchwords.

The same can be said for Matthew Shipp, William Parker, and Thirsty Ear Recordings. The latter’s Blue Series, which includes collaborations with the former, as well as El-P, DJ Spooky, Dave Lombardo, Guillermo E. Brown, Vijay Iyer, and Mike Ladd, among many others, has consistently pushed the boundaries of Jazz, Hip-hop, and the expectations of all those involved. In 2003, it was as a part of this series that Matthew Shipp, William Parker, and Antipop Consortium previously met. Their aptly titled Antipop Consortium vs Matthew Shipp record sounds more like tension than balance, and it is on this tension that the grooves on their self-titled second outing, a collaboration with William Parker as well as Beans and High Priest from Antipop Consortium, Knives From Heaven, rely. Sometimes it sounds like the jostling of traffic swirling around you. Sometimes it sounds like dishes tumbling down stairs. Sometimes it sounds like the incessant churn of machinery. Sometimes it sounds like planets locked in wobbly orbit. No matter: It always sounds just like the future.

I first heard Shipp on the David S. Ware Quartet’s Dao (Homestead, 1995). I’d gotten review copies of that, William Parker’s Compassion Seizes Bed-Stuy (1996), and Williaw Hooker’s Armageddon (1995), which I was planning to review together for Pandemonium! Magazine of which I was then editor. Though I submerged myself in these three records and several similar releases, The Rocket‘s Steve Duda beat me to the review, and I never wrote mine. My taste for the fringes of progressive Jazz had been expanded though, and I’ve checked in with these folks on a regular basis since.

@vijayiyer “old music good! new music bad! except for mine!” — some jazz musician, every other damn day

Matthew Shipp not only plays, composes, and collaborates on Jazz’s edges, but he also thinks deeply about all of the above. When I heard Knives From Heaven, I knew it was time to get the man on the line.

Roy Christopher: This isn’t the first time you’ve been in the studio with these guys. How’d you end up working with Antipop Consortium in the first place?

Matthew Shipp: Beans use to work at a record store here in New York City, and I use to talk to him. He approached me before I had ever heard them. Of course when I heard them, I was blown away by their forward-looking aesthetic.

RC: What is it about their work that attracts you to collaborate?

MS: There is nothing cliché about how they go about it, and it has the feel of the same modern, New York zeitgeist that informs my own work.

RC: Are there any other Hip-hop acts you’d like to work with?

MS: Not really… I use to want to do something with Madlib, and I use to want to work with Kool Keith/Dr. Octagon, but I am completely involved in my own Jazz universe now.

RC: Hip-hop has flirted with Jazz regularly over the past twenty years, but the opposite hasn’t been the case. Knives From Heaven (again) illustrates the untapped potential of their mating. How do you see elements from the two genres working together?

MS: well first I am not sure if Knives From Heaven is Hip-hop flirting with Jazz or Jazz flirting with Hip-hop—

RC: I’d say it’s both.

MS: Well, first, music is music, and if you melt down the particulars there is room for dialogue between the various so-called genres. I think the so-called freedom of Jazz can be a point of inspiration for certain Hip-hop artists of a certain mental bent, and both musics have their own particular swing: The pulse of Free Jazz is a vortex of information, and all electronic musics thrive off of information, therefore it is up to the imagination and talent of the producer to cook a good meal. The palettes of both musics are different in some respects and similar in some ways so a good cook will figure out a blend that makes sense.

RC: Your work blends the architecture of composition with the spontaneity of improvisation. How does your process manifest songs? How do you decide where to start versus where to stop?

MS: I am always working or thinking about my musical language, so how do you start a sentence when you talk? Well, you know the language so well that you just start with the faith that words will come to you that match some internal imagery and the words will match whatever vague emotions and feelings you want to get across to the person you are talking to. It is very similar in this. Also, the deeper you get into your language the deeper the merger between form and content is which means if you have a deep organic concept. The architecture of composition and the spontaneity of improvisation will merge because they come from the same matrix, and form and content are one actuality, so there is some impetus that grows the structure of the piece or improvisation together with the content. And as far as stopping, that is instinct: If you know your language and your phrasing and your flow, you know when the ideas have played themselves out, therefore you know when to shut the fuck up.

RC: You bend time by mixing tradition with futurism. Do you see music in terms of eras?

MS: Yes and no. I see music as vibration that emits pulse and coheres in different ways. I see eras as each time period has its own constructs and organizational worldview… I don’t really believe in linear time so eras are an illusion to me, but a very real illusion: Every so-called time period has its own questions it asks of vibrations… But I do melt down all so-called time periods in Jazz to find some language that I can proceed to move into timeless period in.

RC: You’ve been making music long enough to have seen the changes in the technologies of recording and releasing, as well as listening and consuming. Are things getting better or are they getting worse?

MS: Worse. The world is too complex for its own good. There are too many possibilities and with the proliferation of all the technology and possibilities that we have, with all that, people are no smarter. In fact, you could argue that they are dumber and operate with less focus and concentration about what is really real.

—————

Check out the Knives From Heaven collaboration, and look for the new record called Elastic Aspects from the Matthew Shipp Trio out on Thirsty Ear in 2012.

Here’s a clip of Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Beans, and Priest working on the Knives from Heaven record at Spin Recording Studios [runtime: 3:06]:

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… and here’s Part 2 with Shipp and Priest [runtime: 2:50]:

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Tricia Rose: Hip-hop Warrior

Tricia Rose is the O.G. Hip-hop scholar. Her book Black Noise (Wesleyan, 1994) is one of the germinal texts for serious Hip-hop studies. Anyone who approaches the culture of Hip-hop from a serious stance must contend with Rose’s work. Her latest book, The Hip-Hop Wars (Basic Civitas, 2008), is a critical look at the debates surrounding Hip-hop, debates that have largely sprung up in the fifteen years since Black Noise was published. Hip-hop music and culture deserves to be taken seriously and looked at critically, and Tricia Rose is down to give it its due.

Tricia Rose

Roy Christopher: Tell us a bit about your new book The Hip-hop Wars and how it differs from Black Noise.

Tricia Rose: Black Noise was a very academic treatment of the emergence of Hip-hop and its political and aesthetic and social element/impact on black culture and US society. It was about the music and lyrics and the social context. Although it addressed the debates about Hip-hop in the public sphere it was interested in figuring out Hip-hop “on its own terms” and setting an intellectual agenda for understanding what was then an emergent art form.

The Hip-Hop WarsHip-Hop Wars is about the public conversation on Hip-hop and how that conversation along with the spiraling downward content of commercial Hip-hop is working together to restore racial stereotype (and therefore undermine real cross-racial unity and equality), dumb down Hip-hop fans and continue the justification of unjust social policies that most negatively impact poor black youth. It is highly accessible, created with bite size chapters and is intended to spark youth engagement with social justice issues through Hip-hop (e.g., gender, racial and class) and to challenge all the stupid arguments leveled for and against Hip-hop in mainstream and Hip-hop media.

RC: Can you briefly explain the “gangsta-pimp-ho trinity” and how you think it came about?

TR: This is a term I came up with to describe the intensely defended most powerful Hip-hop triangle of financially profitable but socially destructive images that have dominated commercial mainstream Hip-hop for over a decade now. I wanted to convey their mutual relationships and I wanted to imply that together they make up the “god” of Hip-hop that is worshipped by record company executives, rappers (present and aspiring) and fans. I also wanted to challenge readers into thinking about how too many of us investment in these images as if they are the truth and that anyone who challenges this is considered outside of the culture and therefore unworthy of serious consideration. As for how it came about, well that’s an answer far too long for this space but in Hip-Hop Wars! But the very, very short answer would be: a) long and powerful history of racial stereotypes that perceive blacks as violent, criminal and hyper sexual, now refashioned for the urban present; b) expansion street economies in poor communities due to chronic and very high levels of joblessness elevates these icons in real life; c) economic value of these images of black people.

RC: I agree with you that the Hip-hop Generation needs “the sharpest critical tools to survive and thrive,” but, as Jay-Z says, they just wanna hear their boy talk fly. How are we to engage Hip-hop heads with the necessary critique of this dear culture?

TR: Black youth have always wanted to hear fly artists talk, style and boast. The issue is not about the style of Hip-hop but its content. Black artists have been incredibly creative without elevating the worst of ourselves, without constant justification of self and community destructive attitudes and behaviors. The whole history of jazz is about fly artists talking (think of the powerful style and linguistic and musical creativity associated with BeBop). And politics has always been conveyed through fly talk. What has happened is that now, this style — this powerful way of making creative pleasure is serving a death imperative. It is what I call “the manipulation of the funk” (funk serving here as a parallel to the idea of fly boy talk; the role of stylistic pleasure in making content pleasurable.

Black NoiseSo, the question isn’t why aren’t mainstream rappers political (they are – it is a politics of renegade, community destruction) or how do we get them to be critical (they are critical of all kinds of things, but too often it’s the wrong things!) it is what kind of politics are some rappers pushing when their “fly boys talk.” What kind of critical So the opposite of “bitches ain’t nothing but hos and tricks” or “99 problems” isn’t necessarily Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” or Immortal Technique’s “The Cause of Death,” it is something like Lupe Fiasco’s “Kick, Push” or “The Cool” or Common’s “The Corner.”

RC: I’ve asked a few emcees why when one performs angry black music that the audience is mostly white. The answer I get is that it’s a class issue not a race issue. That is, middle- and upper-class folks are the ones with the leisure time to contemplate such issues. Other factors notwithstanding do you think this is an accurate assessment of the situation?

TR: When I watched 50 Cent’s DVD concert in the Detroit area I was stunned to see the mostly white audience when the rear stage cameras were in action. Yes, middle class youth have both the comfort and the educational resources to attend to these issues in a conceptual way and their consumption of radical ideas is given more room and safety. Black rappers with “angry” political content rapping to an all black crowd tends to bring out the police and the FBI; there is a long history of that in Hip-hop alone, not to mention R&B and Soul music in the late 1960s. And, black fans use “local” black radio as a key means for guiding consumption. Back radio (which isn’t local or black owned too much anymore) rarely plays radical political content — which would make it seem organic to black communities (which it is) and give it currency among black youth.

RC: Is there anything else I didn’t bring up or that you’re working on that you’d like to mention?

TR: Thanks for asking this. I want to mention the end of the book where I offer six guiding principles for progressive consumption generally and specifically for Hip-hop. I think it is so important to remind ourselves of how powerful, energizing and beautiful creative expression can be. And, to not be manipulated into thinking that the content need not be rough to be valuable (often a culturally conservative position) or that it is “keepin’ it real” when it panders to subcultures of self-destruction and violence (the hyper-pro-Hip-hop defenders). Most of us need a more balanced and forward looking, progressive way out of this. My six principles outline a larger way to think about culture, our past, our communities and our politics in ways that honors the complexity of creativity but refuses to give a free pass to those who let the market rule. So, I’ll close on one of these principles: We live in a market economy, don’t let the market economy live in us.”

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Recurring Themes, Part Six: Sleeper Artifacts

“The essence of culture is found in all its artifacts.”
— Pete Robinson in Donald Antrim’s Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World

During one of our mid-session chats at the skatepark recently, my friend Greg mentioned that a lot of the older guys he skated with at various parks, guys who’d skated back in the late 70s and early 80s, started skateboarding again after seeing the Dogtown and Z-Boys documentary. I don’t know why, but this struck me as an odd phenomenon. I guess because it was a halo effect I hadn’t thought about.

Similarly, in Doug Pray’s 2001 movie Scratch, in interviews with a lot of today’s prominent turntablists, one of the questions was, “What made you want to be a DJ?” A large majority of the interviewees named Herbie Hancock’s 1983 hit “Rockit” as the defining impetus for their becoming DJs. This also struck me as odd since the main thing that stuck with me about that song was the video’s disturbing robotic mannequins (see below). “Rockit” is also a total anomaly in the Herbie Hancock canon, but it brought scratching to the mainstream with its infectious hook, based on the frenetic but rhythmic scratches of GrandMixer DST alongside Hancock’s catchy keyboards and mechanized vocals. Unbeknownst to me, it also had a major role in setting off what would become the turntablism movement — the DJ as musician.

RadI read a similar series of interviews with professional BMX riders a few years ago, and the same question was posed to the day’s top pros. Again, a large majority cited one cultural artifact as their starting point. This time, it was the 1986 Hal Needham movie Rad. Given my age, and the fact that I was already deep into BMX when Rad came out (I clearly remember going to see it the night it opened in my town in Alabama), I never thought that it would affect the sport the way it obviously did.

Along the same lines, Duane Pitre claimed Back to the Future (1985) was the reason he started skateboarding, and I’m guessing he’s not the only one.

These few examples demonstrate clearly to me that culture is about our relationships to cultural artifacts, and not necessarily their intended purposes. It’s about the effects of artifacts, and not the artifacts themselves. It’s about the ripple, not the rock.

I always cite James Gleick‘s Chaos as a turning point in my adult life. Reading that book turned me back into a reader and set me on my way to graduate school.

What cultural artifacts changed your path or had a deep impact on you?

Here is the aforementioned video for Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit” (runtime: 3:25):

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Mike Ladd: Rebel Without a Pause

Several years ago, my friend Greg Sundin gave me Mike Ladd’s Welcome to the Afterfuture (Ozone, 2000). I was instantly hooked. Ladd’s spaced-out beats and intelligent wordplay push the limits of hip-hop until they break into noisy splinters. Genre distinctions can’t hold the man. He’s been performing in every possible way since age thirteen, but his body of work reflects the very best that hip-hop can be. After digesting Afterfuture, I simply had to hear more.

Knowing that this would be the case, Greg explained that Ladd’s first record (Easy Listening 4 Armageddon [Mercury, 1997]), during which a lot of the stuff for Afterfuture was recorded) was difficult to find due to record label bullshit. Finding it became a personal mission that was finally accomplished a few years, a few states, and many record stores later (and it was well worth it). Ladd hasn’t made things much easier on me since. His records have come out on several different labels and often under one-off group names (e.g., the conceptual pair The Infesticons’ Gun Hill Road [Big Dada, 2000] and The Majesticons’ Beauty Party (Big Dada, 2003) — I wish I had the space here to tell you this story), but they’re always worth the search.

His latest outings include a collaboration with pianist Vijay Iyer called In What Language? (Pi Recordings, 2003), Nostalgialator (!K7, 2004), and Negrophilia (Thirsty Ear, 2005). Where In What Language? and Negrophilia are collaborative avant-jazz explorations (the latter includes the Blue Series Continuum, as well as Vijay Iyer), Nostalgialator is more like Ladd’s older stuff: straight ahead hip-hop, but twisted with his cerebral, poetic bent.

That said, all of Ladd’s music runs along a spectrum from head-nodding to mind-expanding, and it often sits dead in the middle, bringing your dome the best of both. Whether it’s grimy boom-bap, heady jazz, or whatever else he decides to explore next, Mike Ladd always brings it rugged and rough.

Roy Christopher: Tell me about Negrophilia. What were your aims with this record and how did it all come together?

Mike Ladd: The concept has been with me for a long time. I think in a way, all of my records have touched on this topic, especially when you are a Black artist doing stuff that doesn’t make the mainstream or is esoteric, and you have to contend with a large portion of your audience being white (especially when that wasn’t your primary intended audience). That said, when Petrine Archer-Straw’s book came around, I had to read it, and it touched on at least some of the origins of the Negrophilia phenomenon, a phenomenon that has grown beyond Elvis and is as bizarre as Michael Jackson, Eminem, and Condoleezza Rice having tea and smoking stems in a drum circle in Norway.

RC: Why is that? Why is it that when Black artists create challenging Black music, their audience ends up being mostly white folks?

ML: The answer is actually pretty easy and is more of a class issue than a race issue. “Experimental music,” alternative music, underground, whatever you want to call it — music that doesn’t sell, sometimes on purpose — is hard to access. It’s hard to find at retailers and in the media — even the internet. It takes time to find it, and it usually takes a certain amount of effort to fully enjoy it. Generally speaking the people who can afford the time to pursue music this adamantly are often middle class or richer (poor, working-class white kids don’t come out in droves to see our shit either, and there is often a proportionate amount of middle-class kids of color at the shows).

For most people sitting and listening to music — especially music that takes time — is a luxury they either can’t afford or choose not to. If you bust your ass all day like most of the world does (even if you’re a yuppie who used to dig the occasional weird shit, but now has a job and a kid and has lost touch with his art friends), the last thing you want to do is come home and listen to some music that’s gonna make your head work more. What you’re making doesn’t have to be that esoteric either: With so much shit out there being pushed, it’s work for the average person to digest great music in an unclear package. On top of that, pop is further propagated by a culture that respects capital return over content in general. The culture that appreciates art that pushes boundaries is relegated to mostly bourgeois institutions, universities, etc.

That said, however, I would like to point out the gratifying experience of meeting someone at every show I have ever played that does not fit the demographic I just described, that is from the audience I love to access; it’s just that they are in small pockets spread out all over the world. It’s like a secret army.

But I don’t think you can make music these days without a deep respect for pop and the people who listen to it (I don’t care if you see it as understanding your adversary or knowing your global terrain). I actively ignored pop all through high school and college. I discovered absolutely amazing music in the process, but I missed out on some basic sensibilities that took me time to understand.

RC: Negrophilia followed pretty closely on the heels of Nostalgialator, yet these records are very different. How did you approach these different projects?

ML: I approached them in totally different mindsets, but I can’t really explain the shit. Nostalgialator was mostly written on the road touring, and recorded in Brooklyn. I did a bunch of Negrophilia at the same time with Guillermo Brown, who is instrumental in this record — this record is as much his as it is mine. At the bidding of the record label (for reasons I still don’t know), I finished Negrophilia alone in my apartment in Paris, which was a completely different environment than I had been used to. I think the difference can really be attributed to the great players on the record: Roy Cambel, Andrew Lamb, Bruce Grant, Vijay Iyer, and my niece, Marguerite Ladd. With Guillermo as coproducer, the collaboration helped it sound so different.

The short answer is that Nostalgialator is a “Pop” record, and Negrophilia is a “Music” record.

RC: You’ve jumped around with different sounds and styles throughout your work. Do you ever wonder or worry that you make it difficult for your fans to keep up with you?

ML: Yes, I’m broke because of it. I think I probably lose fans with every record, but hopefully gain new ones too. As long as some people stick with me, I’m going to keep exploring as many facets of myself and my interests as possible.

In 2005, I think it’s pretty naive for any American to think of themselves as culturally one-dimensional. Clearly our president does, and look at how he acts. Then again, look at the skin tones of his family and it’s all shifting quickly. The racial paradoxes in Bush are predictable and Machiavellian, but they still fascinate me, and I’m interested in how they will affect the world.

Okay, that’s off the point of the question, but maybe another answer to the problem you are presenting. The thing is, if I am the package and everything you hear from me is a coherent part of that package, I am simply regurgitating the influence and experiences that have informed me for a very long time. Eight records in, I am deeply grateful to the fans that have stuck with me, for real.

RC: Is there anything you’re working on that you’d like to mention here?

ML: Doing a new band called Father Divine for ROIR Records. Very happy with the way it’s coming along. Shout out to Reg in Colorado and DJ Jun.

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Recurring Themes, Part One: The Dissolution of Trust

“Who put thing together, huh? Me! Who do I trust? Me! That’s who!” — Scarface

One of my recent obsessions has been Shane Carruth’s movie Primer. The story revolves around two engineers who build a device in their garage, a device that turns out to alter time. As intriguing and fascinating as it is, on a deeper level, the science revealed in the film only acts as a catalyst for the evolution of their relationship, which moves from enthusiastic reliance to complete distrust. The two engineers, Abe and Aaron, start off as best friends hellbent on building their machine, but once things get out of control, a rift develops, and the two find that they can no longer work together. Upon first viewing, maybe their scientific discovery overshadows the nuances of their relationship, but once one gets past the idea of time travel (and the subsequently intricate plot structure), the human elements of the story move to the fore.

PrimerSo, after my second viewing of Primer, the idea of fading trust stuck in my head. My terministic screen was then duly haunted by it. Every time I go to a bookstore and I see Micheal Moore’s new book on display (Will They Ever Trust Us Again?), I cringe. I mean, I like Michael Moore, but in the same way that I like Dennis Rodman, Chad Muska, or Andrew WK: I’m not really a fan, but I’m glad he’s there doing his thing. But do I trust him? Not so much.

I’ve also been on a Mike Ladd kick lately. A friend of mine in Seattle turned me on to his music several years ago, and I’ve been geeked enough to try to keep up since. It’s not easy. Ladd is the kind of artist who makes it difficult to be his fan: All of his records are on different labels, many under different names, and often categorized in different genres. Mike Ladd is a poet, a producer, a performer, and more. He’s usually found filed under “Hip-hop,” but genre distinctions cannot contain his work.

In What Language?Anyway, one of his recent records, done with phenomenal pianist Vijay Iyer, In What Language? is an exploration of travel and the breakdown of trust. The record’s namesake is the pre-9/11 experience of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi: “While traveling from a festival in Hong Kong to one in Buenos Aires. Transiting through JFK, he was detained by INS officials, shackled to a bench in a crowded cell for several hours, and ultimately sent back to Hong Kong in handcuffs. Panahi’s description of this ordeal was widely circulated online. He wanted to explain his story to fellow passengers: ‘I’m not a thief! I’m not a murderer! … I am just an Iranian, a filmmaker. But how could I tell this, in what language?'” The airport represents the intersection of the vectors of travel, commerce, globalization, and culture: This is not neutral territory. Have you been to the airport lately? Do you feel trusted? Do you trust the people searching your bags?

And finally, I just got the new Sage Francis record. It’s title? A Healthy Distrust… (By this point, a pattern had emerged.) If you’re familiar with the work of Sage Francis, then you know where this title comes from. It’s the same distrust of Public Enemy, Refused, or Rage Against the Machine (and the same healthy dose that 49% of Americans currently have).

Like so many other intangibles, trust is a process. It’s something that gets checked and re-checked throughout the lifecycle of a relationship. It’s not something I’ve really put much thought into in a while, but my Primer obsession got me thinking about it. Shane Carruth used a scientific discovery to check the trust between his main characters, saying in an interview, “…some device or power is going to be introduced that’s going to change what’s at risk, what they are liable to lose if that trust is broken. And that’s going to be the thing that unravels their relationship, and not just relationships, I was interested in it because I think it’s universal, whether you’re talking about power structures in politics or whatever.”

Universal, yes. Always at the forefront of conscious concerns, no.

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The Blue Series from Thirsty Ear

For the past three years, Thirsty Ear’s Blue Series has been quietly building an arsenal of some of the most interesting collaborations available on wax. They’ve teamed up their Blue Series Continuum jazz band with innovative rappers, producers, and musicians including Antipop Consortium, El-P, DJ Wally, Saul Williams, Meat Beat Manifesto, and DJ Spooky, among many others. The results are neither Hip-hop nor Jazz, but ride the lines between those and several other genres. Continue reading “The Blue Series from Thirsty Ear”

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Weasel Walter: Killing Music

Weasel WalterThe deconstruction of organized sound put forth by multi-instrumentalist composer and improviser Weasel Walter is fiercely aimed at destroying the complacency of music and musicians. This is nowhere more evident than in his rotating cast of characters known as the Flying Luttenbachers. He describes the working plan of the Luttenbachers thusly, “The nature of operations has been to utilize the most appropriate people available — pushing the resulting chemistry as far as possible — and finally to abandon the formation when creative stasis has been reached.” Though he renounces all classifications of genre, the Luttenbachers are a manifestation of the attitudes inherent in free jazz, death metal, and punk rock: a sonic maelstrom of hate and disdain tempered with skills in spades. And behind all of this cacophony is a broader worldview than most drummers can shake a stick at. Continue reading “Weasel Walter: Killing Music”