Fluxblog
January 27th, 2021 8:05pm

Skyscraper Eyes


Matthew E. White and Lonnie Holley “This Here Jungle of Moderness – Composition 14”

If you go back through Matthew E. White’s body of work you can certainly find parts that are influenced by soul, funk, and jazz, most obviously on a collaborative record with Flo Morrissey that included covers of classics by Roy Ayers Ubiquity and Frank Ocean. But nothing I’ve ever encountered that was made by White suggested he was capable of what he does on Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection, his forthcoming record with Lonnie Holley. Through five extended tracks White and his band tap into the jazz funk fusion of early ‘70s Miles Davis, particularly the vibe conjured in the sessions that yielded Get Up With It, A Tribute to Jack Johnson, and On the Corner.

Relative to Davis’ records it’s stripped down and simplified a lot – there’s fewer musicians in the room, no horns at all – but it’s a strikingly similar energy, one that’s hard to come by. White doesn’t perform on the tracks but rather conducts a group of musicians (mostly on synthesizers or percussion, but also on guitars and piano) through the collisions, tensions, and cathartic noise. Lonnie Holley role on vocals is part star presence and part bystander, and the line between him responding to the music and the music responding to his words can be hard to discern. “This Here Jungle of Moderness/Composition 14” brings out a very stressful sort of funk, where even the grooviest bits evoke a fight-or-flight response. Holley’s voice seems to confront the abstracted danger head on, and the more he sings the less startling the sounds get without necessarily ever subsiding.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

RSS Feed for this postNo Responses.


©2008 Fluxblog
Site by Ryan Catbird