The Squid's Ear Magazine


Moten, Fred / Brandon Lopez: Revision [VINYL] (Tao Forms)

Poet and theorist Fred Moten joins bassist Brandon Lopez in their first duo recording, a powerful and searching dialog of voice, text, and bass, recorded at Greyfade Studios, where Moten's incisive spoken word and Lopez's deeply expressive playing fuse into an evocative exploration of Black cultural production, resistance, and creative solidarity.
 

Price: $27.95



Quantity:

In Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 24.00 units


EU & UK Customers:
Discogs.com can handle your VAT payments
So please order through Discogs

Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Brandon Lopez-bass

Fred Moten-text, voice


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




UPC: 642623801710

Label: Tao Forms
Catalog ID: TAO 017LP
Squidco Product Code: 35944

Format: LP
Condition: New
Released: 2025
Country: USA
Packaging: LP
Recorded at Greyfade Studios, in Mount Vernon, New York, by Joseph Branciforte.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"The work of Fred Moten and Brandon Lopez, both powerfully creative and exceptionally perceptive individuals, concerns itself with how one might navigate the ascending reign of long-institutionalized madness while simultaneously keeping humanity and sanity intact.

With Revision, the synergistic mesh of these two voices in duo is presented on record for the first time, following two acclaimed works on the Reading Group label in trio with Gerald Cleaver.

Inimitable poet, cultural theorist, author, 2020 MacArthur Fellow, Fred Moten creates new conceptual spaces that accommodate emergent forms of Black cultural production, aesthetics, and social life. Moten is a professor of performance studies and comparative literature at New York University concerned with social movement, aesthetic experiment, and Black study. He is also a United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Puerto Rican-American bassist Brandon Lopez is the son of a gravedigger who himself put time in doing the same, developing muscles that serve him well in his thorough command of the upright bass. On moving to NYC, Lopez made himself indispensable within numerous realms of creative music. As the Cleveland Review of Books noted, "This is virtuosity as vocabulary, a total command of texture, subtlety, and a depth that can be reached into."

RIYL: Nathaniel Mackey, Amiri Baraka, Manley Lopez, Irreversible Entanglements, Gil Scott-Heron, Art Ensemble of Chicago."—Tao Forms

Also available as a compact disc.

Artist Biographies

"[..] Composer/bassist, Brandon A. Lopez, deemed "The Ubiquitous Free Improv Bass Ace" by the Village Voice and said to play with a "Bruising Physicality" by the Chicago reader.

He was born and raised in the splendors of Northwestern New Jersey, in the shadow of the (New York) city. It was there that he cultivated a taste for the left of center musics and subsequently, dug graves.

He's had the pleasures of working with many of the world's luminary weirdos. Here's a list: Nate Wooley, William Parker, Chris Corsano, Justice Yeldham, Weasel Walter, Peter Evans, Tyshawn Sorey, Gerald Cleaver, Ingrid Laubrock, Tom Rainey, Tony Malaby, Paul Lytton, Mette Rasmussen, Jooklo Duo, Michael Foster, Leila Bordreuil, Jaimie Branch, Joe Morris, Brandon Seabrook, Cactus Truck, John Dykeman, Daniel Carter, and many others.

He's currently leads a trio dubbed "The Mess", another one called the Brandon Lopez Trio, works as a soloist and is formerly/currently/latterly writing more and more music. He may play some it sometime soon (see "gigs").

He attended New England Conservatory."

-Brandon Lopez Website (http://www.brandonlopez.nyc/)
5/19/2025

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

Fred Moten is a professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. In addition to The Little Edges, he is the author of Arkansas, Poems (with Jim Behrle), I ran from it but was still in it, Hughson's Tavern, B Jenkins, The Feel Trio, and the critical works In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition and The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study (with Stefano Harney).

-Wesleyan University (https://fredmoten.site.wesleyan.edu/)
5/19/2025

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


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. #14 4:07

2. #7 4:50

3. #3 2:21

4. #4 6:31

5. #2 3:59

SIDE B



1. #10 4:47

2. #11 6:13

3. #8 8:08

4. #9 2:40

Related Categories of Interest:

Vinyl Recordings

Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Spoken Word
Stringed Instruments
Duo Recordings
New in Improvised Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

Search for other titles on the label:
Tao Forms.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Other Recommended Releases:
Brown, Rob / Brandon Lopez / Juan P. Carletti
Walkabout
(Mahakala Music)
An energetic trio session of collective free improvisation from NY alto saxophonist Rob Brown, bassist Brandon Lopez, and drummer Juan Pablo Carletti, recorded in the studio and driven by an intense energy that maintains a powerful swing, with Brown's incisive phrasing, Lopez's commanding bass, and Carletti's dynamic percussion merging into a spontaneous and deeply expressive musical force.
Lopez, Brandon Septet
nada sagrada
(Relative Pitch)
An intense performance led by bassist Brandon Lopez, recorded live at Roulette during the 2023 Vision Festival, blending deep listening and collective spirit in a dynamic, politically charged composition featuring Zeena Parkins (electric harp), Mat Maneri (viola), Cecilia Lopez (electronics), DoYeon Kim (gayageum), and drummers Gerald Cleaver &Tom Rainey, propelling intricate textures and ritualistic intensity.
Lopez, Brandon / DoYeon Kim
Syzygy, Vol. 1
(577 Records)
A confluence of contrasting strings recorded in the studio in NYC, bringing bassist Brandon Lopez and gayageum master DoYeon Kim together in an acoustic dialogue of free improvisation, blending Lopez's explosive intuition with Kim's dynamic reinterpretation of tradition, resulting in a fascinating sonic journey that bridges ancient melodies and avant-garde exploration.
Ughi, Federico (w / Leo Genovese / Brandon Lopez)
Infinite Cosmos Calling You You You, Vol. 1 [VINYL]
(577 Records)
The first album under 577 label leader and drummer Federico Ughi's name in five years brings together the incredible bass skills of Brandon Lopez and expansive Argentinean keyboard sonics of Leo Genovese, the first of two planned volumes recorded in the studio for a boundary-less album of acoustic and electric improv influenced by the music and philosophy of Sun Ra.
Lopez, Brandon
vilevilevilevilevilevilevilevile
(Tao Forms)
Extremely active in the Downtown NY scene as a versatile double bassist in a wide variety of settings, Brandon Lopez presents a tour de force album of solo improvisations, developed to illuminate his abilities as a powerful string player but also as a mischief-maker on the strings through unexpected technique and the application of "RealBadVibes".
Lopez Trio (Brandon Lopez / Steve Baczkowski / Gerald Cleaver)
Matanzas
(Relative Pitch)
"Matanzas" translates to "Killings", an apt description of this fiercely dark and propulsive free improv album from the NY trio led by bassist Brandon Lopez with saxophonist Steve Baczkowski and drummer/percussionist Gerald Cleaver, drawing unexpected and often malevolent sound from their instruments, particularly on the extended "Dithyramb, Sodomy, Salt".
Cleaver, Gerald / Brandon Lopez / Hprizm
In The Wilderness [VINYL]
(Positive Elevation / 577 Records)
Drawn from an experimental improv performance by drummer Gerald Cleaver and bassist Brandon Lopez at 577 Records' 2019 Forward Festival, electronic artist and producer Hprizm of the Antipop Consortium took those recording to reconstruct twelve works of illusory and often surreal music, from active beat-based electronica to hazy dreamlike ambience.
Graham, Forbes (Forbes / Lopez / Lopez)
Another Day, Another Vector
(Relative Pitch)
An unusual set of electroacoustic improvisations recorded at Firehouse 12 from a New York trio led by trumpeter Forbes Graham, also on laptop and drum machine, Cecelia Lopez on analog synth, and bassist Brandon Lopez, Graham mutating his trumpet through sound processing, complemented by Cecelia Lopez's synthetic punctuations, all grounded by Brandon Lopez' solid bass work.
Baker, Jim / Brandon Lopez / Bill Harris
Dura
(Amalgam)
Recorded while double bassist Brandon Lopez was in Chicago, frequent collaborators from two generations--keyboardist Jim Baker on piano and Arp Synth and drummer/percussionist Bill Harris--joined together to record this live-in-the-studio album of highly interactive, explorative, propulsive and often cathartic free improvisation.
Lopez, Brandon Trio
Live at Roulette
(Relative Pitch)
Calling his music jazz and not jazz, bassist Brandon Lopez demands of his listeners to dance, as the quartet of Lopez, Steve Baczkowski on saxophones, Gerald Cleaver on percussion and Cecilia Lopez on synthesizer are heard in this energetic live concert at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, blurring free jazz with experimental sound that never loses its strong grooves.
Lopez, Cecilia
Red (DB)
(Relative Pitch)
Argentinian sound artist based in NYC Cecilia Lopez engages fellow Brandon Lopez Trio double bassist Lopez and drummer Gerald Cleaver for a performance of improvisation, installation and architecture, using woven wire nets filled with instruments and hung from Roulette Intermedia's ceiling to act as a complex feedback organism with which the trio interacts.
Fisher, Colin Quartet
Living Midnight
(Astral Spirits)
Toronto-area saxophonist Colin Fisher, best known for his group I Have Eaten The City, with his collective quartet of NY players Daniel Carter on tenor, alto & soprano saxophones + clarinet & flute, Brandon Lopez on upright bass, and Marc Edwards on drums & percussion, for three extended and exploratory improvisations of exemplary creative insight.
Baczkowski / Lopez / Corsano
Old Smoke
(Relative Pitch)
This smoking album of free jazz leads the New York trio of Steve Baczkowski on saxophone, Brandon Lopez on bass, and Chris Corsano on drums to fiery playing as they burn up the stage at Hallwall, in Buffalo, New York in 2018, over seven concise collective conversations expressing both passion, restraint, and profoundly masterful skill.
Lopez / Nelson / Nicodemou / Cleaver
The Industry Of Entropy
(Relative Pitch)
A great example of Downtown New York modern improvisation that takes unexpected twists and turns, from the collective quartet of bassist Brandon Lopez, a frequent collaborator with Nate Wooley and Ivo Perelman, tenor saxophonist Matt Nelson ( tUnE-yArDs), vibraphonist Andria Nicodemou (Thread Ensemble, Taylor Ho Bynum), and Gerald Cleaver (Veil of Names, Uncle June, &c).



The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC