Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Kill and Eat - Green Bushes (Alright Now CD)


Here's a disc I got a ways back from Caleb Vogel, whose Kill and Eat project has released this stunning little disc on Alright Now Records, a label that doesn't believe in cover art as a means of music discourse, which I suppose is supposed to point towards it being all about the music and not the marketing tactics behind it.

Possible discussion of that aside, the disc is beautiful, opening with the title track, which features a rolling piano line and a softly sung line gently repeated until the piano dissipates into air, brought back again with a jazzy, ethereal quality which nevertheless is highly informed and downright classicist in sound. An accompanying drum line enters as the piece sways between bluesy, Mal Waldron style piano before an airy, breath through metal Nate Wooley style trumpet sound comes in. It's highly expressionist, and the whole thing moves with a casual and lilting groove spurred mostly by the piano backdrop. The end of the 18-plus minute romp finds a crescendo building softly toward an eventual diminishing plane of tones mingling and reshaping against the drum backdrop.

The following "Green Bushes (sketch)" is far more upbeat, and even poppy, moving with a momentum that Vince Guaraldi would approve of while the singer repeats a rhythmic and sincere wordless vocal. Really wonderful piano playing here that glides nimbly beneath the drummer's carefully placed beat work. The closing "Ellipsis (sketch)" is a more billowing affair, with the whole trio cutting out parcels of space for themselves as they glide towards a resolution of casual bluesy smiles, complete with a drum solo that grooves on into the end. Nice little disc, and well worth checking out. We can definitely hope for more from a unit so talented yet genuine in their pursuits.

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