It's a great time to be a music fan and a great time to have a Spotify subscription.
The Baltimore band Animal Collective have recently released a new album, Isn't It Now?, and it's a good one. The release of a new AnCo LP is usually an occasion for repeat listenings, visits to their back catalog, even possibly one long retrospective playthrough of all their albums in chronological order. Followed by more repeat listenings to their latest. One could expect several posts on this blog featuring one new track or another with breakdown, discussion, and exegesis.
But who's got time for that? John Zorn just released several hundred albums from his Tzadik label to streaming services, and digesting all of that may take years, if not a lifetime. So yes, I've been listening to Isn't It Now?, but should my mind even so much as think about the Zorn catalog, I fall down that rabbit hole for the rest of the day and forget all about those magicians from Baltimore.
To make life even more interesting, back on September 12, the Big Ears festival announced its lineup for 2023. The lineup announcements have me thinking about some longtime favorites (Laurie Anderson, Herbie Hancock, Charles Lloyd, Marc Ribot, Mary Halvorson, Julian Lage, Henry Threadgill, Digable Planets, Bitchin Bajas, Dave Holland, James Brandon Lewis, Tomeka Reid, Roger Eno, JG Thirlwell) and provide me with an even longer list of new artists I'm not familiar with but anxious to learn about. I created a Spotify playlist of one album by each band or artist, and I was methodically working my way through the list, although at almost 1,200 tracks and over 81 hours long, that's no small undertaking, especially if the goal is to gain familiarity with the music, not just "Yup, played that track once."
Then came the release of Isn't It Now? and the massive Tzadik catalog. I'm literally overwhelmed.
Today, Big Ears announced the addition of over a dozen additional artists to the 2024 lineup. Folks in some circles might get excited to see Jon Batiste added to the schedule, he's a little too mainstream and middle-of-the-road for my tastes. I certainly don't dislike his music, it's just not interesting enough to me to get me to pack my bags and move my ass to Tennessee for a show.
But Medeski-Russo-Ribot and the Evan Lurie Quintet, on the other hand, are great additions.
Guitarist Marc Ribot and keyboardist John Medeski have played together many times before and have been included in several of Zorn's larger ensembles. But I'm not aware of any recordings where they are the only two featured soloists. I'm not saying that recording doesn't exist - I'm just saying I'm not aware of it. Most of Zorn's smaller guitar-and-keys ensembles with Medeski have paired him with guitarist Matt Hollenberg (Cleric, Titan To Tachyons). The closest I can find is 2015's The True Discoveries of Witches and Demons, which adds Ribot and bassist Trevor Dunn to the metal-adjacent Simulacrum trio of Medeski, Hollenberg, and drummer Kenny Grohowski. Here's Phantasms from Witches and Demons.
Both John Medeski and Marc Ribot are versatile musicians who've played in a variety of settings in several different genres. The Medeski-Russo-Ribot trio may have the heavy feel of Simulacrum, but there's no telling what they'll sound like with the drumming of jam-band veteran Joe Russo (who's separate Selcouth Quartet is also a new addition to the lineup announced today). But one can be assured that the set will be interesting and that it will be good.
Back in the early 1980s, Evan Lurie founded the band The Lounge Lizards along with his brother John Lurie (HBO's Painting with John), Arto Lindsay (DNA), and Anton Fier (The Golden Palominos), although most of his post-Lizards work has been in film scores (Tree's Lounge). The quintet Lurie brings to Big Ears will include Marc Ribot on guitar as well as a bandoneon, a kind of accordion featured in tango music.
So all of this is exciting and now you know how I've been spending my days lately, hunched over the Spotify app on my computer.
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