Jay Hodgson
So there I was, alone in a dried out and mostly dying coniferous wood, the only thing left between a group of young orphan school children and a blood thirsty grizzly bear. “How do I always wind up in these situations?” I asked the dried up mushrooms I’d foraged for dinner in my left palm, “and what am I going to do about this grizzly bear?” Thankfully, I remembered the Walkman! When I put on Billy Mohler’s “Anatomy”, I tell you that bear ran like it had seen Satan herself.
Favorite track: Nightfall.
The Nonsemble
Well... pretty short story - We are BILLY MOHLER fans. With that - we are always looking for more and more of this cat's work that puts his inventive, dark and somewhat menacing upright basslines up front and close to center.
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It was Billy's style and substance that pulled us into his circle from jump. The taste and talent shown by his [choice in] collaborators just gets us that much further...
We love what we're hearing and looking forward to far more listens!
Original pieces brimming with spontaneity, featuring Chris Speed (tenor saxophone), Shane Endsley (trumpet), and Nate Wood (drums)
The paths all converge in Mohler’s quartet on Anatomy, providing an ideal vehicle for the leader’s flexible, rough-hewn and insistently rhythmic compositions. “We never even discussed an arrangement,” Mohler recalls of the session. “The rehearsal take was the take. I don’t know how Shane and Chris figured out when they were going to play, and with Nate we never even discussed a beat to the song.” A similar open-endedness permeates the three “Abstract” solo bass interludes, the first of which entails a rare overdub. “These were improvised pieces, not worked on. I felt it was a good time to do them. I turned on the microphones and started tuning and hit ‘record.’” The contrasting use of motion and space stands out, as does the body and resonance of Mohler’s tone. Working with the sparsest of materials, Mohler finds a way — as both a bassist and a bandleader — to forge something complete, in a category of its own.
credits
released June 10, 2022
Billy Mohler - Bass
Nate Wood - Drums
Chris Speed - Tenor Sax
Shane Endsley - Trumpet
Producer - Dan Seeff
Mixed & Mastered by - Nate Wood
Engineer - Pete Minn
Recorded 2021 at Lucy’s Meat Market in Los Angeles, CA
All Songs by Billy Mohler Music BMI
Album Artwork - Eron Rauch
PR - Fully Altered Media - Matt Merewitz
Special thanks to Dan Seeff, Dayna Stephens, Nate Wood, Shane Endsley, Chris Speed, Evan Jake Goldstein, Randy Ingram, Ryan Julio (ETA), Dave Robaire, Paul and Kate Solomon (Sam First), my amazing family Becca, Leotie, Wolf, Van and Clover. And thank you for the support!
Thank you for the endless inspiration Wilbur Ware, Jimmy Garrison, Dave Holland, Ron Carter, and Scott LaFaro.
I was brought here after listening to a live performance of Makaya's on you tube. I instantly loved the song Holy Lands so much that I had to see if the album version was the same rendition as the live one. Then I listened to the whole album! Universal Beings is a just a groove... It's a mix of traditional and something new, very nice. pandr1900
Backed by a trio of jazz musicians, the Taiwanese singer-songwriter develops physical landscapes as a vehicle for stunning sound poetry. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 3, 2024