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    Kolektiv Radio Non-commercial Community Radio Station Based in Prizren

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    The Last Gate

Music

Mike Reed — The Separatist Party (Astral Spirits)

todayNovember 8, 2023 58

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Well into our fourth year living with COVID, the effects remain. People continue to suffer long-term medical consequences, cycle through repeat infections and negotiate the breakdown of civility gnawing at the heart of social and political life. The Separatist Party is the first of a trio of collaborative albums on which Chicago drummer and composer Mike Reed explores seclusion and isolation. Cornetist Ben LaMar Gay, multi-instrumentalists Rob Frye, Cooper Crain and Dan Quinlivan from Bitchin Bajas join Reed on tracks which flow easily over Reed’s dexterous rhythms. Poet Marvin Tate adds a gritty presence as he moves between rough improvised soul and browbeating spoken word.

Opener “Your Soul” builds from a minimalist South African rhythm with circular keyboard and guitar motifs as Tate riffs around the line “Your soul is a mosh pit” an intensely energetic contrast to the easy lope of the music. Frye’s tenor and Gay’s cornet helm “A Low Frequency Nightmare” trading licks over woozy keyboards and Reed’s drums which build from a straight-ahead almost komische drive into a syncopated excursion around his kit. On “Hold Me” Gay nags and wheedles as Tate’s exhortations to touch, talk, understand and his kiss-off lines, “The truth is layered, layered/bone, flesh and politic/You never like the way I kissed/and I never cared for your race play/too predictable and historically inaccurate” capture miscommunication that slides too quicky into dispute. The tonal difference between this and tracks like “Floating with an Intimate Stranger” “Our Own Love Language” in which Frye’s flute, Crain’s guitar and Gay’s cornet trace filigreed windmills in the pastoral air can be jarring but The Separatist Party works as a mosaic of mood and styles that demonstrate the often contradictory emotional and artistic responses to common experience.

Across a range of styles that mirror the musical range of the participants, Reed and company find ways to meld their influences into a cohesive whole. Tate’s declamatory poetry hits hard, but the essence of this project lies in the reciprocity of the sextet’s playing. Each member maintains their identity and brings it forth in service of the whole in a display of mutual respect that provides a pathway back into the world. A powerful lesson indeed.

Andrew Forell

Posted by: Kolektiv

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