Anti-Hero (Motéma)

Kneebody

Released March 3, 2017

AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2017

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_laLUe_clzvf0jn0bqT4teVmJGP0AToQ5I

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0dLo1DjKc5pIxLavciclTi?si=qe4xohCFSAKQURhC9VTpRw

About:

With a constantly evolving sound that incorporates electronic music, rock and hip-hop, Kneebody has established themselves as one of the most forward-looking groups in jazz. Following their groundbreaking 2015 collaboration with IDM innovator Daedelus, the GRAMMY-nominated quintet bring raw energy, churning backbeats, and unrestrained exploration to their latest offering, ‘Anti-Hero’.

Track Listing:

1. For the Fallen (Shane Endsley) 05:21

2. Uprising (Shane Endsley) 07:01

3. Drum Battle (Ben Wendel) 10:07

4. Anti-Hero (Adam Benjamin) 05:59

5. The Balloonist (Shane Endsley) 03:31

6. Mikie Lee (Kaveh Rastegar) 05:22

7. Profar (Adam Benjamin) 04:43

8. Carry On (Ben Wendel) 03:03

9. Yes You (Ben Wendel) 06:23

10. Austin Peralta (Kaveh Rastegar) 06:06

Personnel:

Ben Wendel: sax

Shane Endsley: trumpet

Kaveh Rastegar: bass

Adam Benjamin: keyboards

Nate Wood: drums

Recorded September 21 – 23, 2015, at Benaji Studios, Laguna Beach, CA

Lucy’s Meat Market, Los Angeles, CA

Review:

Mixing jazz, funk, and electric and electronic sounds with improvisation and intricately crafted group interplay, Kneebody make a basically uncategorizable brand of exploratory jazz and rock. Post-jazz? That said, the bandmembers, who originally met at Eastman in the ’90s and now split their time between Los Angeles and New York, are less traditional musicians than they are instrumental shapers of space, mapmakers charting the topographical landscape of their collective musical mind’s eye. Making up that collective eye on 2017’s Anti-Hero are tenor saxophonist Ben Wendel, trumpeter Shane Endsley, keyboardist Adam Benjamin, bassist Kaveh Rastegar, and drummer Nate Wood. Although they’ve all spiderwebbed their talents outward, establishing themselves as in-demand talents on the progressive jazz and improvisational music scene, it is with Kneebody that they are perhaps best recognized. Anti-Hero follows up their 2015 effort, Kneedelus, an expansive collaboration with electronic musician Daedelus. While Anti-Hero technically lacks Daedelus’ spacy, acid-drenched electronics, it still feels deeply informed by that experience. Here, Kneebody take their standard jazz quintet instrumentation and accent it with various synths and electronic pedal effects applied to their horns and voices. Cuts like “Uprising,” with its distorted, bass-heavy riff, and the propulsive, electronic dance music-informed “Drum Battle” have a hallucinatory, drug-like quality with sections that move from tightly wound interlocking riffs to spiraling, dream-state improvisations. Similarly, tracks like the menacingly determined “The Balloonist” and the soupy, sludge-laden “Carry On” work as a showcase for both Kneebody’s deft arranging skills and their own distinctive, post-bop-informed solos. What’s particularly pleasing about Kneebody’s sound on Anti-Hero is the balance they achieve between tangible acoustic instrumentation and the more alien sounds. Listen to how the jaunty, hip-hop-inflected intro to “Drum Battle” gives way to the computer-like fractals of Benjamin’s synth and Wood’s kinetic EDM-style beat. Elsewhere, cuts like the opening “For the Fallen,” the sparkling “Profar,” and the languid, kaleidoscopic “Mikie Lee” have an organic symmetry that brings to mind a jam band take on the cyclical compositions of Steve Reich. As the title implies, Kneebody’s Anti-Hero is an engaging album of instrumental jazz that achieves its goals while stridently defying convention.

Matt Collar (AllMusic)