The Messthetics And James Brandon Lewis – VINYL LP

As far as meetings between punk elder statesmen and avant-jazz explorers go, the Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis is an intuitive one. Drummer Brendan Canty and bassist Joe Lally, as the rhythm section of Fugazi, had a wide appetite for grooves from outside of hardcore’s pummeling standard vocabulary, whether the half-time sway of reggae or the piston-pumping backbeat of funk. And Lewis, though deeply rooted in jazz tradition, is similarly willing to stray from genre orthodoxy in search of a sound that suits him: The saxophonist’s modern-classic 2016 LP No Filter, full of distorted electric bass and throaty horn lines, has the gleefully pugilistic energy of an all-ages basement show. Lally and Canty formed the Messthetics as an instrumental trio in 2018, filling out the lineup with Anthony Pirog, a left-field jazz guitarist who’s equally adept with sidewinding melody and searing noise, and has worked often with Lewis, including on No Filter. After Lewis sat in with them on a couple of live dates, it must have felt only natural to invite him into the fold for an album. […] pitchfork.com

A1 L’Orso
A2 Emergence
A3 That Thang
A4 Three Sisters
A5 Boatly
B1 The Time Is The Place
B2 Railroad Tracks Home
B3 Asthenia
B4 Fourth Wall