Chicago Transmissions
By Brent Burton
The latest dispatch from the Chicago Underground, titled Possible Cube (Delmark), finds cornetist Rob Mazurek and percussionist Chad Taylor checking in as the Chicago Underground Trio with Noel Kupersmith supplying the low-end and Jeff Parker (who plays in Tortoise and also alongside Mazurek in Isotope 217) filling in acoustic guitar and organ on three songs.
Whereas Mazurek and Taylor's 1998 Chicago Underground Duo record, 12 Degrees of Freedom, was a sparse live document reminiscent of early Art Ensemble of Chicago recordings and Don Cherry's Mu duets with Ed Blackwell, Possible Cube finds the Chicago Underground Trio sounding even more elastic and diverse. Possible Cube, which was recorded by ex-Tortoise member Bundy K. Brown, segues from melodic, AACM-style post-hardbop to abstract electronic excursions and back, never straying from the overall minimalist tone of the project.
While certainly less expansive and brave, the Chicago Underground Trio touches on the genre-bending experimentation of great, early electric fusion records like Herbie Hancock's Sextant and Miles Davis' In A Silent Way.
Mazurek and Taylor show up again on Sam Prekop's first solo record (Thrill Jockey), which isn't so much a departure from Prekop's songwriting in the Sea & Cake as it is a refinement or extension of that sound.
With the help of producer Jim O' Rourke (Gastr Del Sol), Prekop has moved away from the ones and zeros of the Sea & Cake's recent electronic textures, opting instead for a more organic, jazz-informed approach; Prekop and Archer Prewitt's (Sea & Cake) clean, lattice-like guitars glide over Taylor and bassist Josh Abrams' relaxed polyrhthms and O'Rourke's saccharine string and horn charts.
While the overall breeziness of the affair threatens to obscure Prekop and O'Rourke's miniaturistic attention to detail, close listens reveal an intricate album which subtly references everything from Joao Gilberto-style bossa nova to Cluster and Eno soundscapes.
by Brent Burton
info@outersound.com
