Tropical storm Chantal blew through our slice of paradise on Sunday, drenching the region with six to 11 inches of rain. Rampant flooding ravaged homes and businesses, blew out roads and upended trees—nowhere near the catastrophe in Texas, but enough of one that some lives have been forever altered for the worse. We survived unscathed ourselves, thankfully, and with our power intact, enjoying an evening with The Sopranos and Johnny Carson before turning in.
“First world problems.” That’s life without the Internet, right? We woke on Monday to discover our Internet/cable was down and cell service nil. SOS! SOS! So much of modern life revolves around instant-on everything, from TV to music to the news to (gasp!) this blog, that it’s almost impossible to do anything without being online.
Well—not quite. I have 1.36 terabytes of downloaded and ripped music files, plus a healthy LP collection. I clicked play (for the umpteenth time, I hasten to add) on King King, a collaborative set due out this Friday from guitarist (and Colorfield Records owner-engineer-producer) Pete Min and well-regarded drummer Joey Waronker, who’s played with everyone from Elliott Smith to R.E.M. to Roger Waters and, at the moment, is serving as the human metronome for the reunited Oasis. (To quote Liam Gallagher, “He’s the best and we’re lucky to have him. I’ve enjoyed all our drummers but this guy is special.”)
King King isn’t a guitar-drum cacophony, however. It’s an excursion into avant-garde jazz that finds Min playing the piano, synths and drum machines in addition to guitar, while Waronker feasts at the same studio buffet while also handling drums and percussion. Joining them are an array of Colorfield’s all-stars, including Benny Bock (synths), Daphne Chen (strings), Mark Guiliana (drums), Nicole McCabe (sax), Gabe Noel (cello and ocarina), and Jeff Parker (guitar).
In the press release, Waronker equates the sessions as replicating “a non-linear way of thinking. I would come over [to Pete’s studio] and he’d have certain instruments picked out that would guide our direction for the day. Pete would tell me to play just the black keys on a certain piano, or I’d mess around with the balafon, which is a pentatonic instrument. There were no wrong notes.”
The result is a sonic odyssey that, to my ears, replicates the unsettled times we find ourselves in, with thunderous storms tempered by mesmerizing god rays (aka, for those not familiar with the term, sunbeams that seemingly slice through the clouds.) Nicole McCabe’s sax on “Above Clouds,” for example, is an epiphany set to song, while “Tangled Woods,” which is accented by Josh Johnson’s sax, cuts through life’s complications in soulful fashion. Other tracks, such as “Parrots” and “Chocolate Chop” replicate slow-moving storms like Chantal. “Transformers,” for its part, is a meditative wonder, while the title track—which also features McCabe—is at once ethereal and weighty, melodic and rhythmic, akin to a dream that one doesn’t wish to end.
That last sentence encapsulates the album as a whole, too. It’s a remarkable 35-minute marvel that finds you leaning in to listen throughout.
The Old Grey Cat 