some fine local music...

here in Atlanta some local freaks have formed a loose, late-sixties/early seventies Miles Davis-type unit that fuses shades of Fender Rhodes driven electronic music with instruments played by strange living creatures, giving birth to a funky, percussive, open-ended sound that stretches out into the ether. horn and guitar float airy lead passages over the tight rhythm section that drives the sound and explores the mysterious surfaces of the music's scant framework. they take a theme, much like Mile's style in his later "directions in music," and move around it, expanding, condensing, reshuffling and interpreting it as they go. the drums and bass mix with the swirling fog of electric piano, the flute stirs the soup, altered and twisted slightly with reverb and delay, as sharp skronky notes scattered from sax and trumpet dot the dark expanse of musical space like small explosions. the core of the group consists of just two guys but they enlist a revolving cadre of instrument wielding entities to flesh out their musical flights into inner as well as outer space.

you can read an interview with Mathis 'Smoofus' Hunter of the Noot and you can head over to the Noot's Myspace page and hear some tunes; check out "House of Light" and "Fire King" in particular. I'm not normally a fan of so-called "electronic" music, but the Noot is a very interesting combination of influences that find a pretty unique expression in a musical landscape fraught with bottomless pits of vapidity and plauged with a commercial sickness that destroys everything it touches. these guys play because they are searching for a sound, and enjoying the ride.

if anyone wants a copy of their "Live at the Beep Beep" or the "Goofer Dust Mixtape" let me know and I'll put one in the mail.