Into Uncharted Waters
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Every night on the five-week tour, McCombs and Kupersmith would play their set, and the Duo–cornetist Rob Mazurek and percussionist Chad Taylor–would play theirs. Then, as a sort of grand finale, all four musicians would take the stage and wing their way through loosely structured material, usually something Mazurek had worked out with sections that were totally free. It was a challenge for the self-taught McCombs, but he found it liberating. “Before, I always felt like I was kind of a faker,” he says. “I didn’t have a jazz background, and I had never played standards. Now…I’m not comfortable enough with myself to do something completely free, but I have more confidence in myself to actually serve a role in something like that.”
A new Brokeback EP, Morse Code in the Modern Age: Across the Americas, which comes out January 23 on Thrill Jockey, doesn’t involve Mazurek or Taylor, but it does capture the neither-fish-nor-fowl spirit of the tour’s experiments. Of the three pieces, two are decidedly abstract, the occasional dreamy melody floating past the way a tantalizing smell from a kitchen might waft out into the backyard on a summer evening. And all three are radically different from the meticulously crafted tunes of Field Recordings.
Archer Prewitt also takes a stylistic detour on his new EP, Gerroa Songs (Carrot Top), recorded in Australia in March 1999. Compared with the sparkly, immaculate pop found on his two previous solo outings, the tone of the new eight-song, 27-minute release is subdued and dark. In his liner notes Prewitt remarks on the “eerie aura” of the seaside site, a former nunnery, where the music was recorded, and the atmospheric effects include the chirps of local insects and a chilly echo. On a variety of spare instrumentals and melancholy songs–most notably the Lennon-esque centerpiece, “Another Peace of Mind”–Prewitt evokes the emotional austerity of Nick Drake without actually sounding like him.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Suzy Poling.
