The Squid's Ear Magazine


Seabrook, Brandon (w/ Cooper-Moore / Gerald Cleaver): Exultations (Astral Spirits)

The title aptly describes the intense excitement and exhilaration of NY guitarist Brandon Seabrook's second trio album on Astral Spirits, performed with rhythm giants Cooper-Moore on Diddley Bow (a single-string bass) and free jazz drum legend Gerald Cleaver, the two creating a percolating interactive foundation for Seabrooks powerfully expressive and investigative playing.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Brandon Seabrook-guitar

Gerald Cleaver-drums

Cooper-Moore-Diddley bow


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Label: Astral Spirits
Catalog ID: AS132CD
Squidco Product Code: 29286

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Menegroth, The Thousand Caves, in New York, in September to December, 2019, by Colin Marston.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Brandon Seabrook, a guitarist of rhythmically inventive force, boasts a curious style in which he effortlessly draws from the avant-garde, free improvisation, experimental and indie rock genres, including punk and math rock. Exultations emphasizes his energetic chops on top of the structurally rhythmic riches provided by kindred spirits Cooper-Moore, a dexterous pianist here exclusively dedicated to the diddley bow, and Gerald Cleaver on drums.

Powerful aural transmissions occur throughout a mesmerizing record that opens with "Flexing Fetid and Fecund", a sinewy and muscled noise-rock exertion involving athletic drumming and distorted diddley bow slaps. Faithful to his strenuous, agitated vocabulary, Seabrook expands the freedom to "Dark Bogs", a mechanical, somewhat droid-guided march where he engenders out-of-the-box textures and opens new communicative channels with both digital-oriented proficiency and industrial sonic conception.

Cooper-Moore and Cleaver often adhere to a sort of krautrock precision, and if "Behavioral Tub" implants electronic music influences in the experimental affairs, then the wildly inventive "Along Comes Diddley" proposes a fluttery funk feel conveyed by breakneck guitar actions spilled out with abandon, fire and flair. Whereas the former piece is permeated with carefree guitar noodling, fiery fretwork easily morphing into ostinatos processed by spacious effects, and drum rudiments fleshed out over a droning texture; the latter provides pointillism and synth-guitar clouds over a blistering rhythmic ambiance.

Trapped in a post-punk trance appended with glitchy sounds, "Cudgel Majik" differs considerably from both "Essential Exultations", an atmospheric tour with some diaphanous minimalism, and "Absurdities in Bondage", where the trio finds a special way to swing. Still, all pieces share the rigidly interlocked rhythms of Cooper-Moore and Cleaver in addition to Seabrook's manifold strengths, which include the ability to mutate his playing from sharply angular to quizzically atmospheric.

The originality and inventiveness of the trio translate into unconventional textures that make this experimental work starkly fascinating."-Filipe Freitas, Jazz Trail

a href='http://www.squidco.com/r.cgi?p=29285'>Also available on cassette tape with download code.

This album has been reviewed on our magazine:

The Squid
The Squid's Ear!

Artist Biographies

"Described by Spin Magazine as "An apocalyptic, supersonic general of the banjo..." Brandon Seabrook has made a name for himself in the New York avant-garde music scene as an explosive guitar and banjo performer, relentlessly committed to immediacy and precision.

Seabrook honed his terror-inducing riffage skills at the New England Conservatory in Boston. He has since performed extensively in North and South America, Mexico and Europe, as a solo artist, bandleader and collaborator. He has been summoned by the likes of Anthony Braxton, Elliot Sharp and Joey Arias for his unpredictably spiked approach to improvisation and impeccable caterwauling. He has been profiled in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Magnet Magazine, Fretboard Journal, NPR and The Wire.

Seabrook Power Plant, the nuclear trio donned "a manic clusterfuck of merciless banjo torture" by the Village Voice, is Brandon's brainchild, blending the brutal energy of punk-rock with the intricate execution of through-composed avant jazz. The band has released two albums to much critical acclaim. Time Out New York praised the band's eponymous debut as "not only one of the most baffling experimental releases of the year... also one of the best."

Brandon is an accomplished solo artist, named Best Guitarist in New York City by the Village Voice 2012. In 2014, New Atlantis Records released his first solo album titled Sylphid Vitalizers. Noisey called the album a "dissonant guitar army...(with) mind-blowing prog-rock complexities - all at mind-numbing breakneck speed."

Brandon is currently working on two new albums with his noise-prog trio, Needle Driver and a new sextet featuring immoral, percussive compositions under the name Die Trommel Fatale. This recent work is a poly-rhythmic exploration of the dark side of the drum, layering cello, bass, electronics, voice and guitar against dichotomous drummers."

-Brandon Seabrook Website (http://www.brandonseabrook.com/bio/)
3/13/2024

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

"Gerald Cleaver (born May 4, 1963) is an African-American jazz drummer from Detroit, Michigan. Cleaver's father is drummer John Cleaver Jr., originally from Springfield, Ohio, and his mother was from Greenwood, Mississippi. Gerald had six older siblings. Cleaver joined the jazz faculty at the University of Michigan in 1995. He has performed or recorded with Joe Morris, Mat Maneri, Roscoe Mitchell, Miroslav Vitous, Michael Formanek, Tomasz Sta ko, Franck Amsallem and others.

Under the name Veil of Names, Cleaver released an album called Adjust on the Fresh Sounds New Talent label in 2001. It featured Maneri, Ben Monder, Andrew Bishop, Craig Taborn and Reid Anderson and was a Best Debut Recording Nominee by the Jazz Journalists Association. Cleaver currently leads the groups Uncle June, Black Host, Violet Hour and NiMbNl as well as working as a sideman with many different artists."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Cleaver_(musician))
3/13/2024

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

"As a composer, performer, instrument builder/designer, storyteller, teacher, mentor, and organizer, Cooper-Moore [b. August 31, 1946] has been a major, if somewhat behind-the-scenes, catalyst in the world of creative music for over 40 years. As a child prodigy Cooper-Moore played piano in churches near his birthplace in the Piedmont region of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. His performance roots in the realm of avant jazz music date to the NYC Loft Jazz era in the early/mid-70s. His first fully committed jazz group was formed in 1970 - the collective trio Apogee with David S. Ware and drummer Marc Edwards. Sonny Rollins asked them to open for him at the Village Vanguard in 1973, and they did so with aplomb. A studio recording of this group was made in 1977, and issued as Birth of a Being on hatHut under Ware's name in 1979 (re-mixed and re-issued in expanded form on AUM Fidelity in 2015!). Following an evidently rather trying European tour with Ware, Beaver Harris, and Brian Smith in 1981, Cooper-Moore returned home and completely destroyed his piano, with sledgehammer and fire, in his backyard. He didn't play piano again until some years after, instead focusing his energies from 1981-1985 on developing and implementing curriculum to teach children through music via the Head Start program. Returning to New York in 1985, he spent a great part of his creative time working and performing with theatre and dance productions, largely utilizing his hand-crafted instruments. It was not until the early 90s, when William Parker asked him to join his group In Order To Survive, that Cooper-Moore's pianistic gifts were again regularly featured in the jazz context. In the early 'aughts the group Triptych Myth was his own first regular working jazz group in decades and together they blazed some trails and released two albums: one rich formative, and one exquisite. A destined creative re-union with David S. Ware in the Planetary Unknown quartet, the Digital Primitives trio with Assif Tsahar & Chad Taylor, and continued work with William Parker followed. Cooper-Moore's creative life continues well-strong and unabated into the present day. He will be/was the Lifetime Achievement Honoree at the 22nd iteration of Vision Festval, NYC on May 29, 2017."

-Aum Fidelity (http://www.aumfidelity.com/cooper-moore.html)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. Flexing Fetid And Fecund 3:45

2. Dark Bogs 6:07

3. Behavioral Tub 7:01

4. Essential Exultations 6:10

5. Cudgel Majik 4:37

6. Dank Esseintes 3:50

7. Along Came Diddley 5:00

8. Absurdities In Bondage 2:32

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Trio Recordings
Staff Picks & Recommended Items

Search for other titles on the label:
Astral Spirits.


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