What Does a Bowling Ball Sound Like?
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Now Prater’s interested in releasing original material as well. Locust has already put out several discs featuring Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche and one by cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm’s Lightbox Orchestra. But Prater wanted to do something more than put a microphone in front of some musicians, let them snort and scrape for an hour, and package the results. “Seeing such great music locally, I knew I wanted to get involved in it,” says Prater, 30, “but with some other element thrown in that would make it a little more appealing in the sense that it’s not just another improv record.”
The first “Object” releases, due in March, are duet recordings–one from Lonberg-Holm and German trumpeter Axel Dorner, another with reedist Kyle Bruckmann and trumpeter Ernst Karel performing as EKG. Photographs of the objects–such as a bowling ball, a matchbook, and a chest X ray–will appear on the discs’ covers. It’s up to listeners to make whatever connections they can between these things and the music.
When Island Records signed King Sunny Ade in 1982, they hoped the Nigerian bandleader’s gently polyrhythmic juju music could make him the next Bob Marley. The company worked hard, pairing Ade with French producer Martin Meissonnier, hiring Stevie Wonder to blow harmonica on one of his tracks, and tirelessly promoting him in the English-speaking world. While Ade did help spread African music to a large audience, he never became an international pop icon. Maybe the label worked a little too hard–as fine as these 80s discs are, they lack the spark of the singer-guitarist’s pre-Island recordings.
