Breath & pulse, an unforgettable strategy for transferring energy between musicians feels more directly related to endurance than typical designations of music. The possibility of a never-ending breath allows for the weaving of complex explorations of tonal possibility between harmonium, guimbri, drum, & horn that leads to non-conventional strategies of harmony & unity.
The rhythmic engine further develops the pulse, shifting the sounds from recognizable forms to other worlds of sound development & masterful play. Natural Information Society balances knowledge of historical musics with the possibility of new futures, combing many exploratory cultural idioms that help us remember the heart & low sound and hum through meditative, spiritual new music.
Music has the potential to embed us in a state of unlimited possibility that leads to another kind of emotional & spiritual territory. It is this meditative possibility that leads to trans-potentials. The music constantly allows us to shift if we stay with it long enough. Descension (Out of Our Constrictions), a 75-minute composition spanning four stations on a double-sided LP, allows us to experience that build-up. In July of 2019, I had an opportunity to play with Natural Information Society in Berlin at Arkaoda & experience the build-up first-hand. I remember feeling very happy to be away from the political complexities of the United States but still close to the culture that made me.
I came to hear the ensemble as a listener & believer in the music and Joshua asked me to sit in with the group. Given the times, I chose to riff on, “My Country Tis of Thee.” Descension began & for the first 45 minutes, it unfolded. People danced & cheered & really listened. The groove was set & the intentional house/trance/drone was so evocative & in many ways, a polyphony of Chicago sounds. Abrams nodded & I joined. The ongoing rhythmic intent made it easy for me to choose a phrase & stay with it. I remember chanting over & over, sweet land of liberty, sweet land of liberty.
Then, from every mountainside…. from every mountainside…..toward the end of the 40 minutes of so, I was exhausted from wailing… from breathing & shouting, let freedom ring. By the time it was over, I was on the floor & the energy made a shift from a state of trance-like intention to, what felt like a rock concert. We were all the way in. I opened my eyes & the band was still holding it down, with more intensity, but still in the zone, locked. It was like freedom was being nestled between pulse & breath & I was exhausted from wanting it & wanting to participate, in a freedom song or a free state.
Breathing in the wake of George Floyd’s death then takes on a new dysfunction – a new tonal idiom. To be choked or to be unbalanced, for a note to be held back or a sound to be silenced, no longer feel like jazz devices, but rather, a reaction to the complexities that occur on our streets & in our cities. There are shouts, but they are not wailings, there are utterances, yet they are not full speech. It is this truth that links Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) as a sign of the times.
Natural Information Society forces us to imagine the myriad of voices that have fallen on our streets and hear cries & shrieks in the music as a way to understand the immeasurable & often unmediated circumstance of violence that is our new truth. & yet, within the unsettling horror of this day, there is a mantric pull that refuses to cease. An impulse toward redemption. -- Theaster Gates
1. descension (Out of Our Constrictions) I 17:31
2. descension (Out of Our Constrictions) II 19:35
3. descension (Out of Our Constrictions) III 17:26
4. descension (Out of Our Constrictions) IV 20:11
Joshua Abrams: guimbri
Lisa Alvarado: harmonium & effects
Mikel Patrick Avery: drums
Evan Parker: soprano saxophone
Jason Stein: bass clarinet
recorded: London, Cafe OTO, 2019-07-09
producers: Abrams & Michael Ehlers
engineer: James Dunn
