Todd Sickafoose: Tiny Resistors
I've mentioned this album before, but I'm gonna give it it's own thread. The album came out in 2008 to some solid reviews, but I'm only just lately hearing it for the first time, and I hang out on two different music forums (three if you include emu), so if it got past me, it probably got past a lot of people.
This is jazz, but you don't need to be a jazz fan to like it. It's on the fringes, so to speak. If you're familiar with Bill Frisell's style and odder orchestrations, this is in that neighborhood.
Sickafoose is a well-respected bass player, working his own thing and backing pop and rock musicians, too. Instruments making an appearance on this album are trumpet, tenor saxophone, bassoon, trombone, baritone saxophone, acoustic guitar, drums, electric ukulele, acoustic and electric bass, piano, Wurlitzer, vibraphone, marimba, bells, celeste, accordion through a Leslie. For you indie fans, Andrew Bird joins in with his violin and signature whistling. All of these instruments, but this is not free jazz. There are effects and looping, and the sound incorporates elements of jazz, rock, and avant-guard. Even with all its disparate instruments and odd meters and diverse effects, this album is very listenable. My wife, who doesn't hate jazz but doesn't love it either, likes this album a lot. It is difficult to describe this music, because 1.) My enthusiasm doesn't translate to solid cohesive descriptors; I suck at reviewing music, and 2.) Other than a comparability to some of Frisell's work, this is pretty different stuff.
It's sold on emusic, so you can give it a listen there. HIs myspace page also has two tracks that are a collection of samples from the album, and give a pretty good representation of what the album sounds like.
http://www.myspace.com/toddsickafoose
Not everyone will like this, but everyone should at least give it a listen. It's albums like this that make it worth spending hours poring over the shelves, both live and online, for new and exciting music. I feel like I found a gift that someone meant to give me a long long time ago.
Cheers.
This is jazz, but you don't need to be a jazz fan to like it. It's on the fringes, so to speak. If you're familiar with Bill Frisell's style and odder orchestrations, this is in that neighborhood.
Sickafoose is a well-respected bass player, working his own thing and backing pop and rock musicians, too. Instruments making an appearance on this album are trumpet, tenor saxophone, bassoon, trombone, baritone saxophone, acoustic guitar, drums, electric ukulele, acoustic and electric bass, piano, Wurlitzer, vibraphone, marimba, bells, celeste, accordion through a Leslie. For you indie fans, Andrew Bird joins in with his violin and signature whistling. All of these instruments, but this is not free jazz. There are effects and looping, and the sound incorporates elements of jazz, rock, and avant-guard. Even with all its disparate instruments and odd meters and diverse effects, this album is very listenable. My wife, who doesn't hate jazz but doesn't love it either, likes this album a lot. It is difficult to describe this music, because 1.) My enthusiasm doesn't translate to solid cohesive descriptors; I suck at reviewing music, and 2.) Other than a comparability to some of Frisell's work, this is pretty different stuff.
It's sold on emusic, so you can give it a listen there. HIs myspace page also has two tracks that are a collection of samples from the album, and give a pretty good representation of what the album sounds like.
http://www.myspace.com/toddsickafoose
Not everyone will like this, but everyone should at least give it a listen. It's albums like this that make it worth spending hours poring over the shelves, both live and online, for new and exciting music. I feel like I found a gift that someone meant to give me a long long time ago.
Cheers.
Comments
I meant to reply to Jonah's earlier emusic board thread about this, after he asked if this should be considered a legit example of a post-Frisell continuum. (I thought about this, Jonah, even though I never got around to replying!) And my unstated reply would have been similar, I hear Previte and Horvitz in this album too, such that I think of it as influenced by the Frisell/Previte/Horvitz side of that downtown NY scene of the time and onwards, more that triumvirate than Frisell alone.
But really, I'm starting to think that while there is some of that Frisell/Horvitz influence in his music, Sickafoose's fresh sound and brilliant music might have more to do with the innovation cauldron that Brooklyn seems to have become. I keep discovering musicians with intriguing music that sound out front of anything else being made, and they all seem to have Brooklyn as their home. I wish I lived there now, just to have the opportunity to hear them live all the time.
By the by, good to see you over here, Kargatron. I'm barely visiting the emusic boards anymore, not out of protest or anything, just burnout I guess. Anyways, it's good to shoot the breeze with ya again.
Cheers.