Stochastic Mettle Union – Murmuration recorded 2024 & MoveIn,Burna Place Down,Move Out
- Articles Fusion Jazz Genres Jazz
J. Simpson- 10 minutes read
Electric-era Miles meets Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix in Indonesia in this fascinating, sprawling double album from Portland’s Stochastic Mettle Union.
With its dreamy B3 organ and distant, detached trumpet, it’s impossible to not mention Miles Davis’ holy trinity of fusion jazz when discussing the new one from Portland‘s Stochastic Mettle Union. There are moments when the foggy noir trumpet sounds straight off of “Sanctuary,” perhaps left to drift in one of Jon Hassell’s late-night cities like some form of amnesiac ghost. At the risk of sounding reductive, if you dig Bitches Brew, On The Corner, or In A Silent Way, you’ll likely get a lot of mileage out of Murmuration and Move In, Burna Place Down, Move Out.
That’s far from the whole story, though. Murmuration b/w Move In is no pastiche. This eye-crossing, mind-melting double album couldn’t be further from the respectability politics of modern jazz. This is no music for boardrooms or ribbon cutting ceremonies, suburban concerts on the half shell or drive time narcolepsy. It’s a wild, wooly, sparking, lysergic drift that’s far more in-keeping with the anarchic anything-goes spirit of Miles’ fusion than most music you’ll hear in the 2020s.
It’s a wild, wooly, sparking, lysergic drift that’s far more in-keeping with the anarchic anything-goes spirit of Miles’ fusion than most music you’ll hear in the 2020s.
It’s also more of a launching off point than a comprehensive summary. There are definite after-images of ’70s jazz, to be sure, but that’s just the beginning. Instead, every song sounds like it’s own beguiling soundworld, bristling with atmosphere and texture to accompany impressive instrumental performances. While functioning like a cohesive album, Murmuration and Move In is just as much a sonic archipelago, each landmass teeming with its own unique mutations and adaptations, birds of paradise rubbing shoulders with alligators and will o’ the wisp.
Murmuration and Move In, Burna Place Down, Move Out is not one but two albums split for the cassette release. The first half, Murmuration, was recorded this year while Move In, Burna Place Down, Move Out originates from the beforetimes of 2018. Murmuration manages the impressive feat of somehow managing to be both snare tight and loose and laidback, simultaneously, largely thanks to the insane rhythm section of David Haverkampf, sounding like the reincarnation of Elvin Jones, and Adam ” the Kidd ” Strasenburgh, whose growling electric bass brings a knotty, gnarled prog metal feeling to the affair, like Zeni Gava jamming with Tortoise. It’s also the more recognizably jazz of the two sides, thanks to Kyle Linneman’s trumpet and Patrick McCulley’s alto sax, although it’s still a far cry from anything by King Oliver. Those expecting the pyrotechnic soloing of bebop and beyond might do better looking elsewhere. Anyone who can appreciate instrumental music being used to paint impressionistic images, especially without becoming as abrasive as most fiery free jazz, will find themselves getting lost in Murmurations coils over and over.
Move In, Burna Place Down, Move Out, Side B on the cassette release, is the far more experimental of the two, with more emphasis placed on electronics and atmosphere. It opens with “Se” Emouvoire-Rock,Paper,Scissors,” with its searing electric guitar line and light dragonfly drums before getting sucked into the vortex of “Silk Sox-Stardust Chaser – Retro Ritual,” where atonal guitars chime and churn nonsensically while a cassette tape disembowls itself like something out of Begotten before falling apart completely, dissolving into an event horizon of home movies and potential futures.
Things fall apart completely on “Building F-Soft Strange Landing,” the longest outing of the bunch and by far the strangest, jettisoning trad jazz completely in favor of shruti boxes and incantatory priestesses before crystallizing into the loose free jazz drumming and vaporwave dream sequence of electronics of “Byzantine Tractor-Exile,” like an indoor Japanese tidal pool built on the bones of an ancient temple.
Murmuration b/w Move In, Burna Place Down, Move Out is the first release on Stochastic Mettle Union’s new Automatic Sky Records imprint. They’ve already released three more records on there as of December 2024, so suffice it to say it’s a very vibrant, active space you’re going to want to keep an eye on. Suffice it to say, also, they’re off to a very strong start with Murmuration!
If you’re in Portland, you can catch SMU’s Eaton Flowers at tonight’s Live in the Depths at the Atlantis Lounge if you’re in the Portland area.
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