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Grubbs, David / Mats Gustafsson / Rob Mazurek: The Underflow (Corbett vs. Dempsey)

Recorded during two nights at Underflow Records and Art Gallery in Athens, Greece in 2019, The Underflow trio of Mats Gustafsson (reeds, fluteophone, electronics) from Sweden, with Chicago-based Rob Mazurek (trumpet, electronics), and David Grubbs (electric guitar) present an album of wide-ranging, powerful, often explosively eccentric, and always informed improvisation.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



David Grubbs-guitar

Mats Gustafsson-flute, fluteophone, baritone saxophone, live electronics

Rob Mazurek-piccolo trumpet, wooden flute, electronics, percussion, voice


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UPC: B082BX173R

Label: Corbett vs. Dempsey
Catalog ID: CvsDCD063
Squidco Product Code: 28379

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2019
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels
Recorded at Underflow Records and Art Gallery, in Athens, Greece, on May 31st, 2019, by Manolis Aggelakis.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"An uber-trio drawn from distinct parts of the creative music spectrum, The Underflow was recorded during a sizzling two-night stand in May 2019. In a series of duets and trios, guitarist David Grubbs, saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, and trumpeter Rob Mazurek met headlong for the first time, converging not only their acoustic and electric instruments, but at times submerging themselves in a tangle of electronics, then emerging into shamanic bell-shaking chant or chest-rattling howl.

Ranging from extreme noise to delicate texture (even a rare solo by Gustafsson on his first instrument, the flute), the CD's five tracks mark the beginning of a new group, named - the same as the record - after the venue at which they were recorded, the venerable Underflow Record Shop and Art Gallery in Athens, Greece. Harnessing the energy and intelligence of Grubbs' recent solo guitar records, the spirit and grit of Mazurek's hallmark work with the Chicago Underground Duo and recent Desert Encrypts project, and the monster-truck yowl of full- force Gustafsson,

The Underflow is a surprise even for its participants, a present they gave themselves. Open with care, volatile contents inside."-Corbett vs. Dempsey



"The Underflow is the newly minted trio of Mats Gustafsson (reeds, electronics), Rob Mazurek (trumpet, electronics), and David Grubbs (electric guitar). Their self-titled debut album was recorded live in Athens, Greece at the record store/performance venue Underflow and will be released in the fall of 2019 by Corbett vs. Dempsey.

Although Gustafsson, Mazurek, and Grubbs have played together separately and operate within an extensive, overlapping network of collaborators, the three had not convened as a trio until John Corbett proposed the grouping for two nights of concerts in Athens in the summer of 2019. But there is a history: although originally from Sweden, Mats Gustafsson was a regular, vital presence in Chicago during the period when Mazurek and Grubbs were making their mark. It's Rob Mazurek's cornet that pushes Gastr del Sol to new highs on the track "The Seasons Reverse," and Grubbs and Gustafsson released two duo albums in 1999 and 2003 (Apertura and Off-Road), and have been primed for years to take it to the stage again.

The Underflow shows the trio hitting their stride instantly, ranging widely and weirdly with utter self-possession as they veer between a dense frontline of electronics; Gustafsson's lapidary fluteophone and explosive baritone sax; Grubbs's crystalline, athematic voice on the guitar; and Mazurek's all-bets-off improvisatory wildness on trumpet, sampler, and hollerin' vocal. Satisfying as it is, this recording is only a hint of what lies ahead for the trio as they plot their first tour in early 2020."-Mats Gustafsson Website


Artist Biographies

"David Grubbs (born September 21, 1967), composer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist, was a founding member of Squirrel Bait, Bastro, and Gastr del Sol. He has also played in Codeine, The Red Krayola, Bitch Magnet and The Wingdale Community Singers.

Grubbs' first band was a brief-lived punk/new wave group called The Happy Cadavers that released the four-song 7" record With Illustrations in 1982. Grubbs then formed a hardcore punk band called Squirrelbait Youth that later evolved into the influential Louisville, Kentucky group Squirrel Bait, releasing a 12" EP and an album on Homestead Records. Grubbs's next group was the post-punk power trio Bastro, which released and EP and two albums on Homestead.[1] In 1991 Bastro morphed into the more avant-garde Gastr del Sol.[1] This project soon became essentially a partnership between Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke after the band's first album.[1] The albums released by the duo include Crookt, Crackt, or Fly, Upgrade & Afterlife, and Camoufleur. In this period, Grubbs also contributed to other projects, including guitar for two tracks on Codeine's 1994 album The White Birch[2] and guitar, piano, and harmonium on recordings by Palace Music, Will Oldham, Royal Trux, Dirty Three, Matmos, Richard Buckner, Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros, Arnold Dreyblatt, and many others.

Since the breakup of Gastr del Sol in 1997, Grubbs has released numerous solo and collaborative records, mostly on the Drag City label, for which he co-directed the Dexter's Cigar sub-label.[3] In 2000, his album The Spectrum Between was named "Album of the Year" in the Sunday Times.

His 2017 album Creep Mission was described by The Quietus as "a typically playful and intellectually ambitious set - and is as good an entry into the world of Grubbs as any."

In 2018, Grubbs released Failed Celestial Creatures, a collaboration with Japanese guitarist and electronic musician Taku Unami. According to Pitchfork, the album "feels of a piece with Grubbs' last two records under his own name, Creep Mission and Prismrose, both nominal solo releases that each features a handful of guests. On all three albums, Grubbs uses the presence of collaborators to play with drones, repetition, and improvisatory interplay, taking his style to a more intuitive place."[4]

He operates his own label, Blue Chopsticks, which has released new and archival recordings from Luc Ferrari, Derek Bailey and Noël Akchoté, Workshop, Van Oehlen, and Mats Gustafsson. Grubbs is also known for his collaborations with writers Susan Howe, Rick Moody, and Kenneth Goldsmith, and with visual artists including Anthony McCall, Angela Bulloch, Stephen Prina, and Cosima von Bonin. He has composed the soundtracks for Angela Bulloch's installations Z Point, Horizontal Technicolour, and Hybrid Song Box.4, and his music appears in two installations by Doug Aitken. Grubbs's sound installation "Between a Raven and a Writing Desk" was included in the 1999 group exhibition Elysian Fields at the Centre Pompidou.

Grubbs's soundtrack work includes music with Matmos for Thierry Jousse's feature film Les Invisibles. Grubbs has also contributed music to the Red Krayola's soundtrack to Norman and Bruce Yonemoto's film Japan in Paris in LA and to three films by Augusto Contento (Parallax Sounds, Strade Trasparenti, and Onibus), to Braden King and Laura Moya's film Dutch Harbor: Where the Sea Breaks its Back, and to John Boskovich's film North. Music by Gastr del Sol appears in the PBS television series The United States of Poetry, Hal Hartley's film The Book of Life, and Doug Aitken's film The Diamond Sea. Grubbs composed the score for Karl Bruckmaier's radio adaptation of Peter Weiss's Die Ästhetik des Widerstands (Hessischer Rundfunk Hörbuch des Jahres 2007) and contributed music to Bruckmaier's adaptation of Alexander Kluge's Chronik der Gefühle (Deutscher Hörbuchpreis 2010, "Best Fiction").Grubbs solo in 2009.

From 1997 to 1999, Grubbs was a part-time instructor in the Liberal Arts and Sound departments at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is currently Professor of Music in the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, CUNY.[5] He teaches in Brooklyn College's MFA program in Performance and Interactive Media Arts (PIMA) and Brooklyn College's MFA program in Creative Writing, and is a member of the faculty of the Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music (BC-CCM).

Grubbs received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Chicago. His criticism has appeared in Texte zur Kunst, Chicago Review, TDR, Conjunctions, Bookforum, and Purple, and from 1999-2007 he regularly contributed music criticism to the Munich newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Grubbs received a 2005-2006 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

Grubbs is the author of two books for Duke University Press: Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording (2014) and Now That the Audience Is Assembled (2018). Now That the Audience Is Assembled was described by The Washington Post as "a new book-length poem [that] reminds us that listening can feel stranger than dreaming."[6]

He is one of five musicians (with Steve Albini, Ken Vandermark, Damon Locks, and Ian Williams) profiled in Augusto Contento's 2012 documentary film Parallax Sounds.

Grubbs lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Cathy Bowman, and their son Emmett Bowman-Grubbs."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Grubbs)
10/2/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
"Born 1964 in Umeå, Northern Sweden.Saxplayer, improviser and composer. Solo artist and international tours and projects with a.o. Sonic Youth, Merzbow, Jim O´Rourke, Barry Guy, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshimi, Ken Vandermark and in working groups The Thing, FIRE!, Gush, Boots Brown, Swedish Azz and Fake (the facts). Large ensemble work with Barry Guy New Orchestra,FIRE! Orchestra and the NU - ensemble.over 1800 concerts and over 200 record productions in Europe, Australia, Africa, North & South America and Asia.Collaborations with contemporary dance, theater, art, poetry as well as projects with noise, electronica, contemporary rock and free jazz.Discaholic - running the discaholic corner website.Producer of international festivals and concert tours as well as work with own record labels Slottet, OlofBright Editions and Blue Tower Records."-Mats Gustafsson Website (http://matsgus.com/archives/category/bio)
10/2/2024

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

"Rob Mazurek is an American electro-acoustic composer, cornetist, improviser and visual artist living in Chicago, Illinois. As a composer, Rob Mazurek has written over 300 original compositions over the past 30 years, and has released 55 recordings on various labels. He currently leads a number of ensembles, including Exploding Star Orchestra, Pharoah and the Underground (featuring Pharoah Sanders), Chicago Underground, Pulsar Quartet, São Paulo Underground, Skull Sessions, Sound Is Quintet, Starlicker, Mandarin Movie and Throne of the House of Good and Evil, each of which possesses its own distinct musical personality.

He has collaborated with a wide variety of artists, such as Bill Dixon, Pharoah Sanders, Mike Ladd, Roscoe Mitchell, Yusef Lateef, Fred Anderson, Naná Vasconcelos, Mamelo Sound System, Kassin and Marcelo Camelo and others. Additionally, Rob Mazurek works as a visual artist (incorporating sound, painting and video) with numerous international performances, exhibitions and artist residencies."

-Rob Mazurek Website (http://robmazurek.com/)
10/2/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. City Stone Sleep 17:59

2. Goats And Hollers 5:56

3. Creep Mission 4:29

4. Not In A Hall Of Mirrors 16:15

5. I'll Try Anything Twice 5:51

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Chicago Jazz & Improvisation
Japanese & Asian Improv/Rock
Trio Recordings
Mats Gustafsson

Search for other titles on the label:
Corbett vs. Dempsey.


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