I'm proud to announce the arrival of Heavy Metal Be-Bop #13! This is the first new installment of HMB — for those just tuning in, my interview series dealing with the intersection(s) of jazz and metal — in roughly 20 months. The subject is none other than Matt Mitchell, a pianist who over the past five years or so has become a ubiquitous avant-jazz breakout star, anchoring killer bands led by Tim Berne, Darius Jones, Dave Douglas and many more while also advancing his own severely advanced composition/bandleading aesthetic on an increasingly ambitious series of Pi Recordings discs. The latest — A Pouting Grimace, out next week — is an exhilarating and throughly batshit marvel than any lover of any kind of radical, progressive or just plain weird music needs to hear:
As you'll read, Matt is a serious head when it comes to metal, and he and I went deep on his many underground faves, including Portal, Virus, Jute Gyte and Incantation. He also offered some insight into how his steady intake of outré heaviness might have informed his own new music.
Check out the "theatrical release" of the interview here, via WBGO. (A big thanks to Nate Chinen for hooking this up.) And read the considerably lengthier director's cut here, at HMB HQ.
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PS: Mitchell and Kate Gentile, the kit drummer on A Pouting Grimace, both also appear on Gentile's recent Skirl release, Mannequins. If the head-spinning complexity, insane textural variety and overall relentless rush of fresh ideas heard on the Mitchell disc appeal to you, I strongly urge you to pick this one up as well. I'm still digesting Mannequins, and that may be the case for years to come, but I can easily say that along with A Pouting Grimace, it's one of the most striking records I've heard in 2017, in any genre.
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