The Squid's Ear Magazine


Bishop, Jeb / Alex Ward / Weasel Walter: Flayed (ugEXPLODE)

An assertive album of free improv bringing together players from New York (drummer Weasel Walters), London (clarinetist & electric guitarist Alex Ward), and Chicago (trombonist Jeb Bishop), their previous shared projects and cross-genre intentions in rock, hardcore jazz and other experimental forms leading to this wonderfully quirky and masterful album of excoriating free jazz.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Jeb Bishop-trombone, electronics

Alex Ward-guitar, clarinet

Weasel Walter-drums


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UPC: 194171402777

Label: ugEXPLODE
Catalog ID: ug75
Squidco Product Code: 27959

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2019
Country: USA
Packaging: Jewel Case
Recorded at Seizures Palace, in Brooklyn, New York, on March 26th, 2019, by Jason LaFarge.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Flayed is a studio recording of the first time meeting of this particular combination, although I share a good amount of history and friendship with both musicians. The singular contrabassist and our mutual peer Damon Smith had the bright idea to make a quartet record with Alex Ward, Jeb Bishop and myself, since both of those guys were going to be around New York on the same dates. Jeb and Damon had been working together frequently in the Boston area and Alex was in town at the time touring with This Is Not This Heat. Damon ultimately had a schedule conflict and began recommending substitutes, but I posited that a trio sans bass would reveal a fresh, less idiomatic dynamic.

Jeb Bishop spent some time as bass guitarist and trombonist in my ever-evolving unit The Flying Luttenbachers during 1993 and 1994. We worked together in numerous improvised music settings during that decade and we touched base periodically through the years while he roamed the planet with the Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet and interfaced with an endless array of esteemed international improvisers.

Alex Ward cut his teeth as a precocious kid clarinetist performing adroitly with Derek Bailey. He worked prolifically in the improvised music scene and eventually revealed a penchant for articulate, noisy guitar playing. We finally got a chance to play and hang during a British jaunt I undertook back in 2011, which also resulted in the formation of our long running trio Deadly Orgone Radiation with guitarist James Sedwards. Most recently, Alex toured Europe in the guitar position with the latest Flying Luttenbachers lineup.

The three of us are all longtime music fanatics/researchers/trivialists, and the intersection of our mutual obsessions and sensibilities in the areas of experimental rock and hardcore free jazz/improvisation bear most heavily on these eight tracks of diverse, spontaneous improvisation. I believe we achieved a good amount of sonic, timbral and structural diversity while retaining the tension and energy we all continually aspire to. Alex switched strategically between his axes and Jeb brought along a small, chaotic cracked electronics setup to contrast his virtuosic trombone displays. In these settings I try to approach my drum setup from a quasi orchestral perspective, focusing specifically on different combinations of components or using auxiliary percussion and preparations to extend the possibilities of my sound palette.

Flayed is a spicy hot cut of high velocity free improvisation. Don't worry, dear listener - if you get close to it, I promise it won't cut you like a saber, but it might clean your ears out like a wire brush."-Weasel Walters


Artist Biographies

"Jeb Bishop was born in Raleigh, North Carolina during the Cuban missile crisis. He began playing the trombone at the age of 10, under the tutelage of Cora Grasser. Other influential teachers during junior high and high school included Jeanne Nelson, Eric Carlson, Richard Fecteau, Greg Cox, and James Cozart.

He majored in classical trombone performance at Northwestern University from 1980-82, studying with Frank Crisafulli. Deciding he did not want to pursue a career as an orchestral musician, he returned to Raleigh in 1982 and took up engineering studies at NC State University. Raleigh's developing underground rock scene attracted him, and from 1982-84 he played bass guitar in rock bands in the Raleigh area.

At the same time, he developed an interest in philosophy, eventually majoring in the subject, and spent 1984-85 studying philosophy at the Higher Institute of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.

Returing to Raleigh in 1985, he spent the next few years working at menial jobs and playing guitar, bass, cheap keyboards, drums, etc., in rock bands including and/or, the Angels of Epistemology, Egg, and Metal Pitcher.

In 1989 he left Raleigh to pursue graduate studies in philosophy, first at the University of Arizona, then at Loyola University of Chicago (where he was awarded the Crown Fellowship in the Humanities). During 1991-92 he returned to Europe, spending the summer of 1991 studying German at the Goethe-Institut Iserlohn (now closed), and then pursuing independent studies in philosophy at the French-language division of the University of Louvain.

Returning to Chicago in 1992, he completed his M.A. at Loyola in 1993. By this time he had already begun to make connections with improvising musicians in Chicago, having joined the Flying Luttenbachers as bassist (later adding trombone) in late 1992, and playing guitar occasionally in a quartet with Weasel Walter, Ken Vandermark, and Kevin Drumm. Other bands during this period included the Unheard Music Quartet (with Vandermark, Mike Hagedorn on trombone, and Otto Huber on drums) and the Rev Trio (with Walter and saxophonist Joe Vajarsky). Bishop played electric bass in both these bands.

In late 1995, Bishop joined the Vandermark 5 as one of its founding members, and remained with the band through the end of 2004. During this period he also became associated with many other groups, including the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, School Days, Ken Vandermark's Territory Band, and his own Jeb Bishop Trio, and became a very frequent participant in ad hoc and free-improvised concerts in Chicago. Bishop performed in the inaugural concerts of two of the longest-running free-music concert series in Chicago: the Myopic Books weekly concerts (originally at Czar Bar; with Rev Trio) and the Empty Bottle Wednesday night concert series (with a quartet of Terri Kapsalis, Kevin Drumm, and Jim O'Rourke). He curated the monthly Chicago Improvisers Group concerts at the Green Mill from 1999-2002, and co-curated the weekly Eight Million Heroes concert series at Sylvie's in 2005-6.

Bishop has made dozens of recordings with many different groups, has toured North America and Europe many times, and maintains a busy performing schedule."

-Jeb Bishop Website (http://www.jebbishop.com/jebbio.html)
4/9/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Alex Ward was born in 1974. He is a composer, improviser, and performing musician. His primary instruments are clarinet and guitar, and he has also performed in public and on recordings on alto sax, piano/keyboards, bass guitar, and as a vocalist. He was based in Oxford from 1992-2000, and since then has lived in London.

His involvement in freely improvised music dates back to 1986, when he met the guitarist Derek Bailey. As an improviser, he was initially principally a clarinettist (sometimes also playing alto sax), but since 2000 he has also been active as an improvising guitarist. On both instruments, hIs longest-standing collaborations in this field have been with the drummer Steve Noble.

From 1993 to 2001, most of his activity as a composer took place in collaboration with Benjamin Hervé, mainly in the context of the rock band Camp Blackfoot. From 2002-2005, his writing was mostly done solo, and was primarily focused on songs. Since 2006, he has been heavily involved in both solo and collaborative composition, predominantly (though not exclusively) of instrumental music. Much of his writing and performing during this time has been done with Dead Days Beyond Help, a duo with drummer Jem Doulton. He also currently leads a number of bands including Predicate, Forebrace, The Alex Ward Quintet/Sextet, and Alex Ward & The Dead Ends.

He has been a member of many other groups including ensembles led by Eugene Chadbourne, Simon H. Fell and Duck Baker, and has also done various work as a session musician and in collaboration with other media. Since 2005, he has co-run the label Copepod Records with composer/performer Luke Barlow. He does the recording, mixing and/or mastering of most of his own music, and for many of the groups he plays in."

-Sites.Google.com (https://sites.google.com/site/alexwardmusician/biography)
4/9/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Weasel Walter (real name Walter Wyzowski) is a composer and instrumentalist who founded the band The Flying Luttenbachers in Chicago in 1991 with a current member of Cellular Chaos and Behold...The Arctopus. Over the years, The Flying Luttenbachers included noted Dylan Posa, and Michael Colligan, while creating a body of music drawing equally from no wave, death metal, gamelan, noise music, hardcore punk and modern classical. Walter moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2003, where he formed the latest of many Luttenbachers lineups, remaining on percussion with the addition of bassist Mike Green (Burmese), and virtuoso guitarist Ed Rodriguez (ex-Colossamite, Gorge Trio). Singular guitar phenomenon Mick Barr (Krallice, Octis, Orthrelm) joined the group in 2005. The Flying Luttenbachers ceased to operate in late 2007. On November 25, 2009, Weasel Walter announced that he was moving to New York City to join the band Behold... The Arctopus on drums and will be writing "new, more extreme material from scratch." He also formed Cellular Chaos with Marc Edwards (drummer), Admiral Grey and Ceci Moss."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_Walter)
4/9/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Vertical Method 07:21

2. Horizontal Method 04:26

3. Cratch and Rail 04:52

4. Salting Frame 14:29

5. Fleshing 05:59

6. Curing 05:35

7. Trimming 04:02

8. Putrefact 05:25

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Chicago Jazz & Improvisation
Trio Recordings
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ugEXPLODE.


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