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Getting to Know You

Hunter Gather

Label: Table & Chairs
Released: 2017
Views: 639

Tracks

I Want to Be an American; Sing; Getting to Know You; The Expatriot; Pay No Mind; Coal Creek; Believe You Me; Let Me Roll My Eyes.

Personnel

Album Description

https://huntergatherband.bandcamp.com/album/getting-to-know-you // "A modular, postmodern approach that echoes Ornette Coleman's...These are inquisitive musicians who don’t hew to preconceptions of what jazz should sound like."- ANDREW GOSPE, THE STRANGER / "[Hunter Gather doesn't] perform these tunes so much as exhale them." - DAVE SUMNER, BIRD IS THE WORM / "[Hunter Gather's] collaborative contribution approach produces a focused intensity. Each song has the dreamy quality of hearing a strange fairy tale for the first time... [a] fascinating, fresh album." - ABE BEESON, KNKX / "Getting to Know You is a collection of absorbing chansons and wind-charm fascinations, evoking the verse-chorus storytelling of the best singer-songwriters...Like a trip on Seattle’s clamoring roadways, Getting to Know You takes the listener on a journey filled with heavy traffic, hard- won successes, and unexpected vistas of natural beauty." - IAN GWIN, EARSHOT JAZZ // The debut from Seattle instrumental outfit Hunter Gather, released on Table & Chairs records. This collection of songs carves out a language based on Levi Gillis’s personal musical vocabulary dealing with what it means to be a jazz musician in 2017. Hunter Gather is as much a post-rock/indie band as it is a jazz quartet, and Getting to Know You delivers a vibrant album with pieces derived from an interrogation and engagement with a broad range of historical forms. “I Want to Be an American” is a hymnal tune conjuring the beauty of Americana and the confusion and frustration associated with living in the U.S. “Coal Creek” is an interpretation of the folk song based on the rendition by banjo heavyweight, Roscoe Holcomb. “The Expatriot” pays homage to the French Renaissance composer Guillaume de Machaut. The title track, as well as “Let Me Roll My Eyes” explores minimalist rhythmic ideas and fuses them with the group’s subtle improvisational language. “Pay No Mind” melds metal with fragments of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The lyrical yet aggressive qualities in “Sing” and “Believe You Me” are reminiscent of, and indeed inspired by, some of the great singers of the last 100 years: Patsy Kline, Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan. The resulting tapestry is a vivid and personal collection of musical and artistic values: rawness vs. the pristine, melody, harmony, sonic exploration. The engagement in these ideas goes beyond the abstract and conveys an emotionality seldom seen in modern instrumental music. // Released September 29, 2017 // Levi Gillis - saxophone (all tracks) / Ronan Delisle - electric guitar (all tracks) / Evan Woodle - drums and percussion (all tracks) / Ryan Beckley - electric and baritone guitar (tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7) / Cameron Sharif - piano and keyboard (tracks 1, 3 and 6) / Alex Oliverio - baritone guitar (tracks 5 and 8) // Recorded August 15-16, 2016 and April 7, 2017 at The Unknown in Anacortes, WA / Engineered by Nicholas Wilbur / Mixed by Luke Bergman / Mastered by Nicholas Wilbur // Photographs of projection slides by Elizabeth Schiffler / Design and layout by Elizabeth Schiffler and Levi Gillis / Logo by Garrett Sand