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Eric Revis: Slipknots Through A Looking Glass
Eric Revis flexes conceptual sensitivity with the release of Slipknots Through A Looking Glass.
Slipknots Through A Looking Glass…
A highly skilled master of sound and sense, GRAMMY award-winning bassist and composer Eric Revis has crafted his artistic legacy around asking the same question again and again: Why not? Experimenting remains integral to his expression. Over the years, the critically-acclaimed artist’s willingness to traverse the unknown has prompted collaborative partnerships with Branford Marsalis, Nasheet Waits, Kris Davis, Peter Brötzmann and Jason Moran.
Heralded by critics as “powerful,” “raw” and “fierce,” Revis’ playing frequently becomes mischaracterized by way of omission.
While he plays and composes with master-level intensity, the intrinsic vulnerability present in any form of experimenting — and deeply present in Revis’ artistry — rarely yields recognition among music writers. “I don’t mind those kinds of descriptions or monikers,” he says, “but not when it’s at the negation of everything else. There may be an air of robustness around my music, but there is a lot of sensitivity and intellectual content.”
Poised to challenge those limited views of Revis’ expression, Slipknots Through a Looking Glass — his eighth solo-led album, and first release on Pyroclastic Records — explores new territory alongside familiar travelers: drummer Chad Taylor, pianist Kris Davis and saxophone masters Darius Jones and Bill McHenry. “The band is kind of an amalgam of groups I’ve previously recorded with,” says Revis, who sought to combine the energies of various project iterations on a single record.
Much of the album’s music — primed for enquiry and collaborative input — emerged during several weeks of solitude. Through a partnership with The Jazz Gallery, the LA native received a 2017 grant from The Rockefeller Foundation to spend some time at the Kykuit estate in Pocantino Hills, NY. Two compositions from that retreat found their way on to Marsalis’ 2019 GRAMMY-nominated recording The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul. Revis sought to interpret the remaining music through a range of treatments — both scripted and spontaneous — on Slipknots Through a Looking Glass, an album that exposes the full flower of his conceptualism. Master producer Ron St. Germain serves as production and mixing engineer for the recording – an instrumental force in the development of its character, at once sprawling and intimate.
Beginning as a developing conversation between Revis and Taylor, “House of Leaves” represents a conceptual flex for Revis as a composer.
The track centers around textural shapes — each, according to Revis, its own island. Exploiting space, the artists leave one island and reenter “nothingness” before traveling to the next. “It was interesting to see how the band could collectively navigate these islands,” says Revis. “Without giving it over to the musicians entirely, the process was more, ‘I have this sparse idea; let’s develop it into this next sparse idea, and then go on from there.’”
Rendered as a “visceral approach to melody,” according to Revis, “Vimen” serves the artist’s appetite for exploring energies that surround the music — and the session — thoroughly and critically. “I wanted more emphasis on the energy than on exact notes or notation,” he says. He asked his collaborators to approach title track “SpÆ” with similar controlled spontaneity. “We kind of deconstructed the composition,” says Revis. The trio tune features Davis on prepared piano and Taylor on mbira. “We just played,” he says.
Incorporating three separate takes, the track features crossfades leading from one take to the next. “It’s almost like if you had people speaking in three separate rooms, and then you put them together — all of a sudden you have this great conversation that, even though it was intended to be about disparate things, really makes a whole lot of sense.”
An artist fascinated by the surrealist movement, Revis keeps a digital journal of images and concepts flashing before him so that he might one day use them in his music.
“The image of slipknots through a looking glass came up and I thought, ‘Wow — this is really cool.’” Immediately he connected his own artistry to the image’s inherent symbolism: the slipknot’s ephemeral nature further complicated by its reflection through the looking glass — was it even there to begin with, and where does it go when it disappears? “All those ideas are very, very much a part of this record,” he says. “The idea of a journey — although it wasn’t something that I set out to do, it’s a theme that runs through all of this record.”
How listeners might interpret his music matters less to Revis than the act of composing and recording it. “We can hear things and say, ‘Wow, I feel a certain foreboding quality about this,’ and the next person says, ‘Wow, this is such a happy song,’ or for example, Tchaikovsky being able to evoke all this emotional gravitas and almost melancholy — out of major chords! He’s able to exact pathos from major chords.”
“Hopefully, it’ll be heard,” he says. “When somebody really doesn’t like something, I think that’s incredibly honest and beneficial. If [my music] truly evokes real happiness, that is absolutely beautiful. But if it makes you uncomfortable, that’s a real emotion. And to have something do that — I think that that’s amazing.”
Visit online at ericrevis.com
Bass Videos
Interview With Bassist Erick “Jesus” Coomes
Bassist Erick “Jesus” Coomes…
It is always great to meet a super busy bassist who simply exudes a love for music and his instrument. Erick “Jesus” Coomes fits this description exactly. Hailing from Southern California, “Jesus” co-founded and plays bass for Lettuce and has found his groove playing with numerous other musicians.
Join us as we hear of his musical journey, how he gets his sound, his ongoing projects, and his plans for the future.
Photo, Bob Forte
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Visit Online
www.lettucefunk.com
IG @jesuscsuperstar
FB@jesuscoomes
FB @lettucefunk
Bass Videos
Working-Class Zeros: Episode #2 – Financial Elements of Working Musicians
Working-Class Zeros: Episode #2 – Financial Elements of Working Musicians
“These stories from the front are with real-life, day-to-day musicians who deal with work life and gigging and how they make it work out. Each month, topics may include… the kind of gigs you get, the money, dealing with less-than-ideal rooms, as well as the gear you need to get the job done… and the list goes on from there.” – Steve the Bass Guy and Shawn Cav
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This Week’s Top 10 Basses on Instagram
Check out our top 10 favorite basses on Instagram this week…
Click to follow Bass Musician on Instagram @bassmusicianmag
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Bass CDs
New Album: Jake Leckie, Planter of Seeds
Bassist Jake Leckie and The Guide Trio Unveil New Album Planter of Seeds,
to be released on June 7, 2024
Planter of Seeds is bassist/composer Jake Leckie’s third release as a bandleader and explores what beauty can come tomorrow from the seeds we plant today.
What are we putting in the ground? What are we building? What is the village we want to bring our children up in? At the core of the ensemble is The Guide Trio, his working band with guitarist Nadav Peled and drummer Beth Goodfellow, who played on Leckie’s second album, The Guide, a rootsy funky acoustic analog folk-jazz recording released on Ropeadope records in 2022. For Planter of Seeds, the ensemble is augmented by Cathlene Pineda (piano), Randal Fisher (tenor saxophone), and Darius Christian (trombone), who infuse freedom and soul into the already tightly established ensemble.
Eight original compositions were pristinely recorded live off the floor of Studio 3 at East West Studios in Hollywood CA, and mastered by A.T. Michael MacDonald. The cover art is by internationally acclaimed visual artist Wayne White. Whereas his previous work has been compared to Charles Mingus, and Keith Jarrett’s American Quartet with Charlie Haden, Leckie’s new collection sits comfortably between the funky odd time signatures of the Dave Holland Quintet and the modern folk-jazz of the Brian Blade Fellowship Band with a respectful nod towards the late 1950s classic recordings of Ahmad Jamal and Miles Davis.
The title track, “Planter of Seeds,” is dedicated to a close family friend, who was originally from Trinidad, and whenever she visited family or friends at their homes, without anyone knowing, she would plant seeds she kept in her pocket in their gardens, so the next season beautiful flowers would pop up. It was a small altruistic anonymous act of kindness that brought just a little more beauty into the world. The rhythm is a tribute to Ahmad Jamal, who we also lost around the same time, and whose theme song Poinciana is about a tree from the Caribbean.
“Big Sur Jade” was written on a trip Leckie took with his wife to Big Sur, CA, and is a celebration of his family and community. This swinging 5/4 blues opens with an unaccompanied bass solo, and gives an opportunity for each of the musicians to share their improvisational voices. “Clear Skies” is a cathartic up-tempo release of collective creative energies in fiery improvisational freedom. “The Aquatic Uncle” features Randal Fisher’s saxophone and is named after an Italo Calvino short story which contemplates if one can embrace the new ways while being in tune with tradition. In ancient times, before a rudder, the Starboard side of the ship was where it was steered from with a steering oar. In this meditative quartet performance, the bass is like the steering oar of the ensemble: it can control the direction of the music, and when things begin to unravel or become unhinged, a simple pedal note keeps everything grounded.
The two trio tunes on the album are proof that the establishment of his consistent working band The Guide Trio has been a fruitful collaboration. “Santa Teresa”, a bouncy samba-blues in ? time, embodies the winding streets and stairways of the bohemian neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro it is named for. The swampy drum feel on “String Song” pays homage to Levon Helm of The Band, a group where you can’t always tell who wrote the song or who the bandleader is, proving that the sum is greater than the individual parts. Early jazz reflected egalitarianism in collective improvisation, and this group dynamic is an expression of that kind of inclusivity and democracy.
“The Daughters of the Moon” rounds out the album, putting book ends on the naturalist themes. This composition is named after magical surrealist Italo Calvino’s short story about consumerism, in which a mythical modern society that values only buying shiny new things throws away the moon like it is a piece of garbage and the daughters of the moon save it and resurrect it. It’s an eco-feminist take on how women are going to save the world. Pineda’s piano outro is a hauntingly beautiful lunar voyage, blinding us with love. Leckie dedicates this song to his daughter: “My hope is that my daughter becomes a daughter of the moon, helping to make the world a more beautiful and verdant place to live.”
Bass CDs
Debut Album: Nate Sabat, Bass Fiddler
In a thrilling solo debut, bassist Nate Sabat combines instrumental virtuosity with a songwriter’s heart on Bass Fiddler…
The upright bass and the human voice. Two essential musical instruments, one with roots in 15th century Europe, the other as old as humanity itself.
On Bass Fiddler (Adhyâropa Records ÂR00057), the debut album from Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and bass virtuoso Nate Sabat, the scope is narrowed down a bit. Drawing from the rich and thriving tradition of American folk music, Sabat delivers expertly crafted original songs and choice covers with the upright bass as his lone tool for accompaniment.
The concept was born a decade ago when Sabat began studying with the legendary old-time fiddler Bruce Molsky at Berklee College of Music. “One of Bruce’s specialties is singing and playing fiddle at the same time. The second I heard it I was hooked,” recalls Sabat. “I thought, how can I do this on the bass?” From there, he was off to the races, arranging original and traditional material with Molsky as his guide. “Fast forward to 2020, and I — like so many other musicians — was thinking of how to best spend my time. I sat down with the goal of writing some new songs and arranging some new covers, and an entire record came out.” When the time came to make the album, it was evident that Molsky would be the ideal producer. Sabat asked him if he’d be interested, and luckily he was. “What an inspiration to work with an artist like Nate,” says Molsky. “Right at the beginning, he came to this project with a strong, personal and unique vision. Plus he had the guts to try for a complete and compelling cycle of music with nothing but a bass and a voice. You’ll hear right away that it’s engaging, sometimes serious, sometimes fun, and beautifully thought out from top to bottom.”
While this record is, at its core, a folk music album, Sabat uses the term broadly. Some tracks lean more rock (‘In the Shade’), some more pop (‘White Marble’, ‘Rabid Thoughts’), some more jazz (‘Fade Away’), but the setting ties them all together. “There’s something inherently folksy about a musician singing songs with their instrument, no matter the influences behind the compositions themselves,” Sabat notes. To be sure, there are plenty of folk songs (‘Louise’ ‘Sometimes’, ‘Eli’) and fiddling (‘Year of the Ox’) to be had here — the folk music fan won’t go hungry. There’s a healthy dose of bluegrass too (‘Orphan Annie’, ‘Lonesome Night’), clean and simple, the way Mr. Bill Monroe intended.
All in all, this album shines a light on an instrument that often goes overlooked in the folk music world, enveloping the listener in its myriad sounds, textures, and colors. “There’s nothing I love more than playing the upright bass,” exclaims Sabat. “My hope is that listeners take the time to sit with this album front to back — I want them to take in the full scope of the work. I have a feeling they’ll hear something they haven’t heard before.”
Available online at natesabat.bandcamp.com/album/walking-away