Jason Lescalleet’s influence was palpably present long before the average Joe knew how many L’s were in his last name (or could successfully google it). He spun tape loops with nmperign from the get-go, frequently signified the endings of his characteristically foundation-shaking performances by hurling a nearly indestructible, hundred-pound Peavy amp across the stage, and provided the bulk of the “disaster” in legendary drummer Lawrence Cook’s “Disaster Unit 2000″. But as the smoke cleared and the Peavy met its demise in a white-walled room, it became apparent to an awful lot of people that Lescalleet was making some amazing music; beautifully constructed symphonies of decay born of an intimacy with items and ideas lesser minds might discard: tape machines, lo-bit samplers, the tedium of everyday life. His ability to evoke powerfully complex emotional experiences from such muck made a collaboration with Graham Lambkin practically inevitable.
Composer Walter Marchetti once made a statement to the effect that he was seeking to reach the “bottom” of music. Some more diligent attention to this task might lead him to the music of Graham Lambkin. Already marking out a glorious bottom with his former band, The Shadow Ring, Lambkin has pursued a music so removed from prescribed aesthetics that one is flooded by the beauty it seems to ruthlessly avoid. He puts the mundane to tape and carves out its horror, its sweetness, and its unsettling ambivalence. Shrouded in a disarming naiveté, the music leaves the listener ill-prepared for its very adult take on being-in-the-world. We are fortunate that humor can be so black, that we may surrender happily and willingly to an experience not many artists are willing or capable of delivering.
This concert will be the first, and likely one of the only, live performances by this duo, on the heels of their stunning release, “The Breadwinner”, on Erstwhile Records.
Speaking of Erstwhile, the duo of Lescalleet and Bhob Rainey, a long-standing and mutually influential relationship, is due to release a much-anticipated work on said label in early 2009. While it may seem a daunting task for Lescalleet to participate in two monumental sets in a given evening, experience has shown that he is more than capable. And he will certainly have a great deal of help from Rainey, whose restless mind lends baroque construction to a music not necessarily known for its formal rigor. His highly-regarded contributions to the outer-reaches of the saxophone and the possibilities of free improvisation, combined with his recent work in musique concrete (including his impeccably constructed collaboration with Ralf Wehowsky on Sedimental Records), assure us that Lescalleet will be kept on his toes and that sparks, however tiny and frail, will fly.
Rainey won’t get much rest, either, as he joins Greg Kelley to form nmperign, and they join Sean Meehan to form… a completely awesome trio. Combining these forces was such an obvious idea that it only took them eight years to actually make it happen. But happen it has (twice - this concert makes three), and it keeps happening because it’s really great. With just one trumpet, one saxophone, and one snare drum, these men commute with molecules to make whatever space they’re in a better place to be. They do it with silence, with elegance, with some deadpan goofing, and with the kind of focus that burns holes through granite. Is there a CD release in this group’s future? That is currently unknown and somewhat irrelevant; their music is so well-suited to live performance, it would be silly to miss it.