#body meπa

[jacobwren]

Prayer in Dub by Body Meπa

[musicmakesyousmart]

Body Meπa - The Work Is Slow

Hausu Mountain

2021

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Body Meπa - The Work Is Slow

This one fell through the cracks last year, but I've been enjoying it quite a bit in the past few weeks. You could probably call what Body Meπa does "post-rock" but I always shudder a little at that genre tag. What we've got here is an imaginative two-guitar, bass and drums band taking some expansive trips together. Jams, yes, but jams with a purpose and direction. The group can groove like TNT-era Tortoise but they're also capable of supreme heaviness, too — after all, bassist Melvin Gibbs' long pedigree includes stints with Sonny Sharrock, one of the heaviest dudes of all. Gibbs and drummer Greg Fox are a killer rhythmic team, with Sasha Frere-Jones and Grey McMurray providing tense, wiry guitar over the top (occasionally punctuated by glorious fuzz). There's no "lead voice" on The Work Is Slow — just a quartet finding collective ecstasy ...

[burlveneer-music]

Body Meπa - The Work Is Slow - a dual-guitar showcase that is about texture and interplay rather than pyrotechnics

Greg Fox: drums Sasha Frere-Jones: right guitar, bass on "Rice Tea" Melvin Gibbs: bass Grey McMurray: left guitar Cover art by Birch Cooper  

[nineteenfiftysix]

Body Meπa - Motherwell (The Work Is Slow, 2021)

[soundgrammar]

Listen to: Horse Flower Storm/Fabuloso by Body Meπa

[dustedmagazine]

Body Meπa — The Work Is Slow (Hausu Mountain)

Photos by Heidi DeRuiter, Ebru Yildiz, Kirk Edwards, Shervin Lainez

The Work Is Slow by Body Meπa

Body Meπa brings together New York musicians Sasha Frere-Jones and Grey McMurray on guitars, bassist Melvin Gibbs and drummer Greg Fox on an album that weaves together various strands of downtown experimentation into a tapestry that explores the avant-rock textures and improvisational dynamics for which the four are known. Frere-Jones is best known as co-founder of dub/funk influenced post-rock trio Ui, McMurray’s CV includes work with John Cale and Colin Stetson, Briggs has played with Defunkt, The Rollins Band and Sonny Sharrock, and Fox is a go-to drummer on the contemporary music scene. All of which is to say there are serious chops involved here and each shines individually leaving their egos at the door to create a series of soundscapes that encapsulate the spirit of the creative environment in which they are involved.

Opener "Horse Flower Storm/Fabuloso" sounds on the face of it like a repetitive lysergic jam, a kind of decelerated Television like extrapolation of surf rock under which Gibbs’ bass bubbles like a hot mud pool. Frere-Jones’ circular jazz influenced vamps and flanged twang carry the main theme as McMurray interpolates pointillist notes and smears of distortion that echo and emphasize. Fox provides both foundation and detail, his drumming relying on rhythmic subtlety rather than bombast. Body Meπa are all about finding a groove and exploring every nuance of its possibility, it’s all about feel rather than flash. Even when the riffage comes the quartet seek not to beat you about the head but get inside it. “Bullitt” evokes another erstwhile downtown mainstay in Bill Laswell and Fred Frith’s noise monster Massacre with squalls of feedback and nervous scratchy chords, Gibb’s dub core bass and Fox’s roiling percussion. It hits like a tsunami but somehow with a space to breathe, the mix separates the guitars, which ring distinct from right and left channels. On “Rice Tea” jazz chords ride a deep funk groove before building into a maelstrom of reverb and delay with the logic of free jazz rather than rockist hubris. 

As Body Meπa, Frere-Jones, McMurray, Gibbs and Fox use the structure of jazz, the space of dub, the circularity of minimalism and the repetition of trance to free up the classic rock guitar, guitar, bass, drums configuration. They are not the first to do it but the caliber of the musicians, individually and as a collective, the wealth of ideas and the generosity of the music make The Work Is Slow a compelling listen. 

Andrew Forell

[diz-cover]

Body Meπa The Work Is Slow 2021

[burlveneer-music]

My WVUD playlist and stream, 6/12/2021

Orchestre National de Jazz - Rituel, Pt. 1 NES, Black String, Nguyên Lê & Majid Bekkas - Encore: Bania (Live) Twospeak - Reflector Arcana - Illuminator Body Meπa - Bullitt Ronald Shannon Jackson - What's Not Said Three-Layer Cake - Luminous Range Machine Mass Sextet - E.D. Hedvig Mollestad Trio - All Flights Cancelled Mythic Sunship - Maelstrom Grave Flowers Bongo Band - Sleepy Eyes Nik Turner & Youth with The Space Falcons - Tesla Can - Stuttgart 75 Fünf Can - Halleluwah (Edit) Yoo Doo Right - 1N914 Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime Electric Jalaba - Tugra Holy Monitor - Naked In the Rain

(listen on Mixcloud)

[nineteenfiftysix]

Body Meπa - Ribbon (The Work Is Slow, 2021)