There isn’t a lot to this album. Just a trio, largely moody vamps, similar tonalities and bluesy modalities, shaped around trumpet.
And rising from the bass up neverthless it hints at being more than the sum of its parts. Led by Anna Butterss joined by trumpeter John Raymond and drummer Ben Lumsdaine who is fairly unobtrusive for the most part but busier on ‘Parallax’ and ‘Open Wide the Big Arms,’ I kept thinking where Raymond is concerned of the sound of Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær a good deal. And if you grew up on a diet of the future jazz of Khmer in the late-1990s then certainly there is a lot to feel familiar towards and fulfilled about turning to this.
Recorded live over a couple of days last year in a studio in Los Angeles, pedals and real-time audio processing play their part. Butterss hails from Australia and has played with people like Jeff Parker and Makaya McCraven. Records of the bassist’s include Activities (2022) and Mighty Vertebrate (2024) that Tortoise star Parker was on and which was co-produced by Indiana’s Lumsdaine. Raymond who also during the course of the album plays flugelhorn and contributes effects is from Minneapolis.
The title track is the big feature for Butterrss and works ok. But the album recedes too much into the background quite a bit although ‘Pacific’ has a bit more anarchy to it and does its best to avoid being too loungey. Head there first. I found the whole thing hard to love but can appreciate its qualities easily enough while acutely aware that fine words butter no parsnips. But if you are new to Butterrss, sincerely, I’d stick around and go back to Mighty Vertebrate for a better example of the bassist’s approach partly because there’s nothing as lively as ‘Bishop’ to be found anywhere on this latest.
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