#joshua abrams & natural information society

[dustedmagazine]

2023: Bryon Rides Anxiety’s Peaks and Valleys

Yo La Tengo

This year really tossed us all around like a gigantic blender, swirling everything together into a writhing mass of fine particles. It’s been quite the ride. Thankfully amidst the chaos, there was music. The vast cornucopia of exhilarating sounds wound itself around the many genres, and the dozens of releases spread across these twelve months. It provided the healing salve to combat the bedlam lying in the realm beyond our ears.

For me, live music in 2023 was about quality over quantity. The two shows that affected me most this past year were aligned along the theme of reunion. I’ve been a fan of Yo La Tengo since high school but had strayed from the band’s past few releases. This Stupid World brought me back into their universe. I jumped at the chance to see them in Toronto; it had been decades since I last saw them play live. They played two sets, one soft and one loud, and they didn’t disappoint. As an added bonus, I got to meet fellow Dusted writer Ian Mathers at the show. Toronto post-rockers Do Make Say Think played their first show in six years in March, around my birthday. I wasn’t going to miss it. They unleashed an enticing set of music, playing material from across their entire catalog with intense energy. It was hypnotic and exhilarating. They were also jovial, joking about the current career prospects of the band members. It was a fun night.

Many perennial favorite groups and artists released excellent albums this year. Yo La Tengo returned to their early Matador form with This Stupid World, while The Clientele expanded into new, lush and uncanny territory on I’m Not There Anymore. Califone’s Villagers pushed the band’s adventurous, bluesy roots-rock into an experimental wonderland. Bill Orcutt released Jump On It, revealing his softer side. The Live in Brooklyn 2011 set from Sonic Youth found the group trying out songs they rarely played live, as they wound down their decades-long existence. Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society showed that they’re not done unleashing mesmerizing sonic salvos with Since Time is Gravity. Finally, Daniel Bachman continued to push his singular brand of Americana toward the outer limits with When the Roses Come Again, and Intercepted Message found Osees covering Cisco Systems’ telephone hold music. It was a good year for long-beloved institutions.

New to me this year was the band Famous Mammals and their polyglot post-punk album Instant Pop Expressionism Now! I returned to it time and time again; it was the soundtrack to my late summer and my autumn. Digging deeper into the San Francisco band’s origins, I discovered a previously hidden world of Bay Area post-punk, populated by a tight-knit scene that originated with The World, which would fracture into Famous Mammals, Non Plus Temps, Blues Lawyer, Children Maybe Later and others. The LP in question blends elements of Swell Maps, Young Marble Giants and Television Personalities, aligning with those outfits’ brashness, naivete, and wry sense of humor. It was at the top of my list in 2023 and led me to explore the SF underground further. That digging led me to Will York’s encyclopedic tome Who Cares Anyway? York gives an in-depth perspective to the goings on in the Bay Area from the post-hippie origins of its punk scene to the self-destructive chaos of Flipper and the visionary artistry behind acts such as Mr. Bungle, Caroliner, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, et cetera. He also investigates the unique personalities that comprised the scene such as Brandon Kearney, Gregg Turkington, Seymour Glass, Barbara Manning, and Joe Pop-o-Pie. The book is worth exploring if you’re at all interested in any of the names I mentioned.

I always highlight at least one Canadian release, and this year I really got into the self-titled debut from Toronto duo You Can Can. The pairing of sound artist Andrew Zukerman and vocalist Felicity Williams is the perfect comingling of the familiar and the otherworldly. Alien soundscapes intercept beautifully crafted song forms, with synth squiggles and abstract patterns writhing alongside folk music signifiers. Let’s hope that You Can Can have more music in store for us in 2024 and beyond.

Bryon Hayes

[aquariumdrunkard]

Joshua Abrams :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

On April 19 of this year Abrams sat for a Zoom call in the Chicago home he shares with his partner Alvarado, backed by one of her signature glowing artworks. Abrams expressed his life’s work with the same reflective purpose and dedication he brings to his art. He discussed his Jewish upbringing, working with The Roots, jamming with Chicago’s finest improvisers and his unparalleled Eremite albums.

[musicollage]

Natural Information Society — Since Time Is Gravity. 2023 : Eremite.

! listen @ Bandcamp ★ buy me a coffee !

[biglisbonnews]

Natural Information Society: Stigmergy Natural Information Society—an ensemble led by avant-garde composer and musician Joshua Abrams—is poised to release Since Time Is Gravity next month, and from it shares the 13-minute “Stigmergy.” The mesmerizing, sprawling piece of music blends jazz with psychedelic elements and an otherworldly feeling. Meditative and hypnotic, the track is “an ensemble ostinato orbiting an Ace Tone Rhythm Ace refracted through Echoplex, dedicated to Arkestra pioneers … https://coolhunting.com/culture/natural-information-society-stigmergy/

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Joshua Abrams Natural Information Society / Gunn-Truscinski Duo - Union Pool, Brooklyn, New York, October 4, 2019

An exquisite double-bill from last month, brought to you by NYC Taper and Union Pool -- thanks, guys. First up, we get the Gunn-Truscinski Duo in full flight, delivering the electric blends we need. Two fresh improvs, plus a totally blissful reading of “Seagull for Chuck Berry.” I could listen to these guys play forever. Then, Natural Information Society take over, with Greatest Drummer Alive Jim White sitting in. Maybe it’s White’s presence or maybe not, but this is a somewhat harder-edged, more aggressive NIS, surging and soaring for close to an hour of unbroken, mindbending magnificence. Absolutely mandatory. 

Oh and hey, speaking of Jim White, there’s a new Xylouris White record on the way via Drag City. It rules! The drummer also seems to have something going with guitarist Marisa Anderson, which should also rule. 

[goodbysunball]

Best of 2019

Happy new year, y’all. Here’s a handful of favorites from yet another ridiculously robust year for music from zee underground and below. Joshua Abrams & NIS was a no-brainer for me, a nearly perfect release all the way around, but the Bobby Would and Mount Trout albums were probably the two I listened to the most this year. Bad Breeding, SCAN and Asid kicked my teeth in, I zoned way the fuck out with Crazy Doberman, K-Group and the Dead C/the Never Quartet, and that Maleem Mahmoud Ghania record is now probably the best sounding record I own. I like that Siltbreeze only puts out one record per year now, I like that Jim Shepard's vaults were cracked, and if you like that legendary Keggs 7″, let me introduce you to the Society’s 7″. Lots of great stuff didn’t make the cut, and I’m still discovering more in the lists/recommendations of other trusted sources (like this Anadol record, or this Extended Hell mini-LP), so keep ‘em comin’. I didn’t do as much writing as I’d like this year, but that’s gonna change soon. Onward!

LP

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society, Mandatory Reality (Eremite)

Krypts, Cadaver Circulation (Dark Descent)

Bobby Would, Baby (Low Company)

Chronophage, Prolog For Tomorrow (Cleta Patra)

Bad Breeding, Exiled (Iron Lung)

The Dead C, Rare Ravers (Ba Da Bing!)

Sempiternal Dusk, Cenotaph of Defectuous Creation (Dark Descent)

Crazy Doberman, s/t (Mastermind)

Itchy Bugger, Double Bugger (Low Company)

C.I.A. Débutante, The Landlord (Siltbreeze)

...and six more:

Fabulous Diamonds, Plain Songs (Alter)

Carla dal Forno, Look Up Sharp (Kallista)

Monokultur, s/t (ever/never / Förlag För Fri Musik)

The Pheromoans, County Lines (Alter)

The Stroppies, Whoosh (Tough Love)

Yellow Eyes, Rare Field Ceiling (Gilead Media)

7″/12″/Cassette

Asid, Pathetic Flesh 12″ (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Euromilliard, "Elève Modèle” b/w “Indolore” 7″ (Pollymaggoo)

Forra, Mostrame Lo Peor 7″ EP (La Vida Es Un Mus)

K-Group, “Accueil” b/w “Over-Future Shop” 7″ (I Dischi Del Barone)

Mount Trout, Shelter Belt cassette (Rough Skies)

The Never Quartet, “1.001.006″ b/w “1.001.007″  7″ (I Dischi Del Barone)

Ossuary, Supreme Degradation cassette (Darkness Shall Rise)

Overt Hostility, s/t cassette (Loki Label)

Pinocchio, s/t 7″ EP (Toxic State)

SCAN, s/t 7″ EP (self-released)

Skiftande Enheter, s/t one-sided 12″ (Levande Begravd)

Reissue/Archival

Maleem Mahmoud Ghania with Pharoah Sanders, The Trance of Seven Colors 2xLP (Zehra)

Jim Shepard, Heavy Action 2xLP + 12″ (ever/never)

Smelly Feet, Left Odours cassette (Independent Woman)

The Society, “You Girl” b/w “Lonely” 7″ (My Mind’s Eye)

V/A, Heavy Space Records - Anthology Vol. 1 cassette (Ikuisuus)

Above: Bill Direen at the Pilot Light, Knoxville, TN, Nov. 17

Shows

Jon Mueller at the Pilot Light, Knoxville, TN, January 23

Gong-trance heaven

This Is Not This Heat at the Mill & Mine, Knoxville, TN, March 23

Best show of the year, no contest

BIG|BRAVE and Primitive Man at the Earl, Atlanta, GA, June 17

One of the most punishingly loud shows I’ve ever seen

Cube at the Pilot Light, Knoxville, TN, June 20

Danced like a fool to his cracked techno

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society at the Diana Wortham Theatre, Asheville, NC, August 24

Now with faster tempos - brilliant

Bill Direen at the Pilot Light, Knoxville, TN, November 17

“I’ve always been a mistaker”

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 488: Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society Mandatory Reality

This is an album highlight of 2019.

Hey, who was asking about jazz the other day? 

Here’s a contemporary jazz record I’m into. Joshua Abrams is a Chicago-based musician who’s played with artists like The Roots, Tortoise, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Jandek, Joan of Arc, and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. With his band Natural Information Society, Abrams recruits a variety of musicians and employs an even greater variety of instruments to make these subdued, rhythmic long-form meditations. A friend of mine described them as “Can jazz,” likely owing both to their steady percussive pulse and their ability to simultaneously sound primitive and futuristic. On both Mandatory Reality and the older NIS albums, you can hear echoes of Can’s “ethnological forgery series” where the krautrock masters tried their hand at replicating musical styles from the far reaches of the globe, but you can also hear their syncopated, percolating rhythms and technological flourishes. And owing to the exotic acoustic instrumentation on Mandatory Reality, the album feels firmly rooted in the older musical tradition of jazz.

I don’t fully understand the methodology behind the Natural Information Society albums, but I get the sense that they take some cues from modern composers like Steve Reich. Much like Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians, there's a heavy emphasis on polyrhythms, with different musical phrases operating in different time signatures and overlapping at odd times, giving the album this sense of clockwork repetition while also causing the overall feel to constantly shift and evolve as the individual components lock in, drift apart, clash, and harmonize. 

Fueled by flute, clarinet, tabla, sax, gong, guimburi, tam-tam, and a bunch of other random stuff, the two performances on Mandatory Reality have an organic old-world timbre, even if the compositions feel modern in their interwoven percolations. It almost sounds like some modular synth artist composed the music and then a bunch of jazz artists had to figure out how to replicate it. Wild stuff and highly recommended.

[lyssahumana]

[dustedmagazine]

Natural Information Society — Since Time is Gravity (Eremite)

Joshua Abrams has been creating music with the Natural Information Society for 14 years. Seven albums in, the group’s name has expanded; they are now Natural Information Society Community Ensemble with Ari Brown. It isn’t just the group’s name that has gotten longer; so has the list of contributors. Joining the core Natural Information Society of Abrams (guimbri and bass), Lisa Alvarado (harmonium), Mikel Patrick Avery (percussion), and Jason Stein (bass clarinet), are Hamid Drake (drums), Josh Berman and Ben Lamar Gay (cornets), Nick Mazzarella and Mai Sugimoto (alto saxophones and flute), Kara Bershad (harp), and the aforementioned tenor saxophonist Ari Brown, in a special guest role that befits his status. Brown is one of the most prominent and celebrated tenor saxophonists of Chicago. Based on the powerful playing displayed here, one would never know that he is nearing eighty.

“Moontide Chorus” builds up from a single bass note to a varied syncopated line in that register. Against it, polyrhythmic percussion and chordal winds are added. Brown solos in a modal idiom that interlocks with the bass parts. The rest of the group rejoins and the percussion takes things double time until the piece’s conclusion. “Murmuration” begins with Bershad playing a gentle harp solo that is then doubled in heterophony by bass instruments. Avery and Drake add economical punctuations and the winds have vertical sonorities. Stein adds a long held tonic drone to the mix that is then doubled by the other winds in octaves. Subsequently, complicated harmonics are evoked by overlapping chords. The bass takes the harp melody and the winds break their chords into corruscating arpeggiations. Brown adds a new melody and Bershad reenters with chordal outlines. Stein adds yet another countermelody alongside a flute solo,   The harp line solo yields to a final denouement. Heady stuff. 

“Is” emphasizes a groove created by drums and guimbri. Over this, Brown takes an extended solo, with wide-ranging scales and blues bends. On the piece’s latter half, a single note ostinato from cornets and passage work from winds fills out the background, and provides a center from which Brown’s solo finds its grounding. Cornets and flute are featured on “Stigmergy,” as are tangy dissonances from the rest of the group. During his solo, Brown creates echoing reverberation. An extended section for muted cornet provides a foil for Brown. Much as the tenor saxophonist is an intrinsic part of the proceedings, having more of the players involved in the soloing makes this a personal favorite. 

“Immemorial” has a fascinating textural profile. Alvarado’s harmonium builds a chordal background onto which sustained notes, glissandos, and microtones are added. Glockenspiel and hand drums create a supple rhythmic underpinning. It is the most adventurous of interactions, and creates beautifully blurred harmonic colors. 

“Wane” and“Wax” are comparatively shorter pieces. On “Wane,” Abrams begins with an extended guimbri solo that is soon joined by Drake’s hand drums. Partway through, they undertake a mixed meter duo that complicates the rhythm. At the end of the piece, the first patterning returns. “Wax” serves as a companion piece that explores shorter rhythmic strands. The recording concludes with “Gravity,” which begins with a loping groove, led by thrumming bass from Abrams, over which Stein solos using Eastern scales. Brown plays a muscular solo that combines a modern jazz approach with a Non Western vocabulary replete with trills. The winds play major sevenths, creating a dissonant background. Brown’s solo moves to a howling climax, followed by a long coda of extended techniques. 

Natural Information Society works well with this expanded complement. The inclusion of Brown is especially effective. Whether the new collaborators will remain, or others players will join Abrams, Since Time is Gravity demonstrates that Natural Information Society is a durable creative enterprise. 

Christian Carey

[brownwork]

I Was Real, our new album, will be released at the end of June (advance orders [US]here or [Europe]here) and we’ve organized a celebratory show in downtown Brooklyn on July 1st.  It is exciting that we were able to get the fantastic Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society to join us for the concert at Roulette.

[burlveneer-music]

Natural Information Society with Evan Parker - descension (Out of Our Constrictions) - live at Cafe OTO, 2019 (Eremite Records)

Rich in musical associations yet utterly singular in its voice, joyous with an inner tranquility, the music of Natural Information Society is unlike any other being made today. Their sixth album in eleven years for eremite records, descension (Out of Our Constrictions) is the first to be recorded live, featuring a set from London’s Cafe OTO with veteran English free-improv great Evan Parker, & the first to feature just one extended composition. The 75-minute performance, inspired by the galvanizing presence of Parker, is a sustained bacchanalia of collective ecstasy. You could call it their party album.

Joshua Abrams: guimbri 
Lisa Alvarado: harmonium & effects 
Mikel Patrick Avery: drums 
Evan Parker: soprano saxophone
 Jason Stein: bass clarinet recorded: London, Cafe OTO, 2019-07-09

[musicollage]

Joshua Abrams ‎– Represencing. 2014 : Eremite.

! listen @ Bandcamp ★ buy me a coffee !

[sweetblahg]

sweetblahg 2018 year in review

75 Dollar Bill (big band) - 9.23.2017 @ The Hideout Block Party

CAVE - 12.31.2017 @ Hungry Brain

Wolf Eyes - 3.1.2018 @ The Owl [5 sets]

ADT - 3.9.2018 @ Elastic

Nick Millevoi’s Desertion Trio - 3.14.2018 @ Elastic

2018 Festival of Large HearingOrgans - 3.22-25.2018 @ Knoxville, TN

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society - 4.21.2018 @ The Hideout

Gunn-Trucinski Duo - 4.21.2018 @ The Hideout

Wet Tuna - 5.3.2018 @ The Hideout

Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band - 5.4.2018 @ The Hideout

Sunwatchers - 5.4.2018 @ The Hideout

Universal Eyes [Wolf Eyes + Universal Indians] - 5.25.2018 @ El Club

The Art Ensemble of Chicago - 5.25.2018 @ El Club

Bitchin Bajas - 6.15.2018 @ Hungry Brain

Neil Young - 6.30.2018 @ Auditorium Theatre

Radiohead - 7.6-7.2018 @ United Center

CAVE - 7.28.2018 @ The Empty Bottle

Guerilla Toss - 9.22.2018 @ The Hideout

[sinceileftyoublog]

Natural Information Society & Drum Divas Live Show Review: 8/23, Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago

BY JORDAN MAINZER

For an event called Preservation of Fire, it was only fitting that Natural Information Society would be joined by who band leader Joshua Abrams called “the tenor flame of Chicago,” saxophonist Ari Brown. Together with percussion collective Drum Divas, Natural Information Society played the event curated by Alejandro Ayala (aka King Hippo) and presented by The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), a night of slow-building, cosmic grooves, acoustic instrumentation that called you to dance by daring to resemble swaths of other music.

The headliners, Natural Information Society, were celebrating their latest album,  descension (Out of Our Constrictions) (eremite), recorded live at London’s Cafe OTO in 2019. (It’s their first album to be recorded live and to feature a single composition, though the album is separated into four tracks.) Many of the record’s key players were part of last night’s incarnation of Natural Information Society: Abrams (giumbri), of course, Lisa Alvarado (harmonium and whose paintings adorn the album cover and the backdrops of last night’s set), Jason Stein (bass clarinet), and Mikel Patrick Avery (drums and cymbals). But while the album was recorded with legendary English free jazz saxophonist Evan Parker, last night’s concert featured Brown, along with Nick Mazzarella (saxophone) and Mai Sugimoto (saxophone and flute) for some added depth. As descension is a very defined composition, built around a specific theme with Parker’s improvisational flourishes on top, I was blown away by how the performance struck the perfect balance between faithfulness to the material and allowing the individual players’ unique expressions.

As on the record, the ensemble started with Abrams leading the way, Alvarado and Stein providing some harmonic pulsations, and Avery’s four-on-the-floor drumming propelling a Chicago house-like beat. Quickly, Brown, centered on stage, began his tenor wails. For those who hadn’t yet heard the record but had seen Natural Information Society before, I imagined their reaction similar to mine when I first heard descension, that this ebullient sax-led forward march was closer to Sons of Kemet than to the hypnosis of Mandatory Reality. Brown’s playing was perhaps a steadier shade, a more consistently soulful bastion of joy as compared to Parker’s all-over-the-place proclamations of celebration and mourning. There is certainly an aspect of solemnity and sociopolitical resistance in descension, whether projected in context or intended. In the liner notes of the record, Chicago artist and professor Theaster Gates writes, referencing Parker’s circular breathing, “Breathing in the wake of George Floyd’s death then takes on a new dysfunction – a new tonal idiom. To be choked or to be unbalanced, for a note to be held back or a sound to be silenced, no longer feel like jazz devices, but rather, a reaction to the complexities that occur on our streets & in our cities.” It was, then, extra reflective to hear this composition outside in downtown Chicago; whereas you can really only tell the recording is live after hearing the crowd cheer following a particularly skronking Parker solo, hearing woodwinds in conjunction with everything from street chatter to sirens was thematically consonant rather than tonally dissonant.

Of course, all the wonderful aspects of the recording--Avery’s thumping cowbell gallop, Alvarado’s polyrhythms, the lead tenor saxophone and Stein fluttering in tandem or in a call and response--were still there. There’s a playful quality to descension, too, as it threatens to quiet only to build back up, convincing you it’s about to emphasize the harmonium and saxophone before Abrams’ twangy guimbri comes full circle. That Natural Information Society continues to defy expectations on a composition like descension is simply astounding.

And Drum Divas came to, in the words of lead vocalist Dorothy Sunshine Lyles, “lift the vibrational frequency.” As the entire 8-piece band came out gradually, their songs emphasized the rewards of patience. They had peaks and valleys, sure, but it was the almost ecstasy of their percussive and vocal harmonies, fully formed, that was the highlight of their set. They fed off of each other’s energy as much as the crowd’s, swiftly changing tempos, adding and subtracting as skillfully as someone with a loop pedal. Like Natural Information Society, they aimed to spread joy almost to combat the current state of seemingly ever-present turmoil. For every gentle, woodwind-imbued moment, the band would pick the crowd back up with dynamism. The faint vocals and distant trilling of Lyles and Sapphire and assorted djembe, frame drum, and mallet percussion playing and even clapping made the beats sound ever-more expansive, making you believe that these women could, actually, journey to the cosmos and back.

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society - Bond Chapel, Chicago, Illinois, January 13, 2018

I wrote a little bit about some new Joshua Abrams jams for Aquarium Drunkard this week — the new Natural Information Society with Evan Parker live LP and Abrams’ Mind Maintenance collab with Chad Taylor. Both very awesome! It’s been great seeing Abrams and NIS get the love they deserve in the past few years. Haven’t been able to catch them live in person, but I hope that happens someday. Until then, here’s a great video of a full NIS performance from a little while back. The lineup here includes Lisa Alvarado, Mikel Avery, Hamid Drake, Ben Lamar Gay, Nick Mazzarella, and Jason Stein. Superstars, all of them! Dig in and bliss out. 

Oh and hey, speaking of Chad Taylor! I wrote the liner notes for Time No Changes, an incredible duo record featuring Taylor and Psychic Temple’s Chris Schlarb. A pleasure and a privilege. RIYL Sandy Bull & Billy Higgins, open tunings, mbiri. You want it, I promise.