WE NEED not look any further here at just how productive John Dwyer and the whole O Sees nexus is – suffice to say, wow; and just weeks on from the John Dwyer, Ted Byrnes, Greg Coates, Tom Dolas, Brad Caulkins album Snow Goose, our review of which you can find here, that particular free-roamin’ permutation is back again with another album, Endless Garbage, out via Castle Face on March 19th; from which they’ve shared a taster, “No Flutter/No Goose”; take a listen below.
Straying further into leftfield than most of Snow Goose, it’s freein’ right up, playing fully outside the pocket, articulating in free sax, percussion, roaming electronics; if Ornette Coleman shakes your tail feather, step right forward please.
As always, John has issued a communique on matters musical herein, which tis only fair to reproduce below; he says:
“Everything incrementally growing everyday. Waste into heaps. Information waves weigh on the human psyche. A small seed of hope cracking its husk and reaching for the sun. Beauty rising from the rubbish heap.
“Walk the dog. Exercise. Make art.
‘The mind is happy when the body is.
Things I can potentially fill my days with if I am stuck at home for months on end …
Then, one day, I hear a frenetic, free drummer playing in his garage a few blocks from me.
And I think ‘interesting’.
I stand outside his garage staring at the wall, like a fool, for a minute, then decide to leave a note on the car parked there.
This is how I ended up meeting and working with Ted Byrnes.
He wasn’t creeped out, and he ended up sending me a pile of truly spontaneous drums recordings from the carport to work with.
I decided to have every musician come in one at at time and just take a wild pass at their track over the drums.
None of these people had ever met or played together.
I was the connecting thread.
I scratched the surface initially with electric bass, saxophone, guitars, cuica, synthesizers, flute and effects, but soon realized I would need heavy hitters to make this place habitable.
“Greg Coates, upright bass expressionist extraordinaire, hacked through the dense weeds, vines and frayed cabling. He lays the map out and makes breathing room. Space to swing a cat.
“Tom Dolas (keys), my often foil, came in and began tip-toeing through the rubble and refuse. Dotting the layout with flecks of light, flights of fancy and potential tangential trajectories.
“Then the finisher, Brad Caulkins on horns. As always, Brad came in like grace itself, scanned the floor for food, and huffed and puffed and blew the house down. He takes a bruiser situation and lends it some warmth and hospitality, old school.
“After I spent a bit of time mixing and editing this down to a palatable offering I couldn’t help but think about human consumption. Our limitless need for material possession, for emotional acknowledgment, for as much information to be thrown in our faces in our very short time here on this mortal coil. We are buried in information. We are constantly hungry and perhaps too smart for our own good. We leave behind us a wake of destruction. Of course, there are moments of great beauty, ingenuity and compassion along the way. You just have to know where to look.
Thus, “Endless Garbage” seemed a fitting title.
A cacophonous and glorious sketch of ourselves.
For fans of Albert Ayler, ECM records, Gong, improvisation, sustainability and consumption.”
John Dwyer, Ted Byrnes, Greg Coates, Tom Dolas, Brad Caulkins’ Endless Garbage will be released by Castle Face on March 19th digitally, on CD and on trad back vinyl; the ‘smoggy dollop’ limited vinyl pressing being already sold out. Set your phasers to stun and place your order here.
Endless Garbage LP –
