Booker Stardrum - Close-up On The Outside Vinyl LP

Drummer/composer Booker Stardrum delivers a new powerful solo album Close-up On The Outside, his first for We Jazz Records. The new record sees Stardrum (also a member of SML) doubling down on the earthy tactility of human sound and communication while also exploring rich, electroacoustic landscapes. The album involves Stardrum's close collaborators Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Chris Williams, Lester St. Louis, Logan Hone and Michael Coleman. The opening title track and the brief "Minturn" place Stardrum's solo music in the stillness of a late summer farm, with field recordings of insects and birds localizing the music; wooden balafon-like strokes are then looped into the foundational structure of the closing "Inside Sounds," hovering at poles that are both plaintive and direct. Dry, homemade mallet instruments and field recordings also nod in the direction of Harry Partch. There's a lot of warmth and sweat in Stardrum's music -- even if it's electroacoustic, one feels that it's made by people, and there is a biologically systemic quality to the way in which digital and analog sounds are interpolated. He creates textures through midi controllers, samples, and loops, wherein acoustic sequences are altered to fit plugged-in concepts or acoustic instrumentalists are brought in to humanize what he's already mapped out electronically. Threading the unique and very present feel of other musicians into his universe with an electronic hand is a fascinating challenge. The people Stardrum chose to work with on Close-up on the Outside are mostly artists he's worked with for years, or been connected to through mutual instigators. Bringing it back to the earthbound carpet that he's striving for, the push-pull between humanism and machinery ties into an ecological concept that Stardrum wants to call attention to. Toggling between composer and organizer, sound designer and instrumentalist, Stardrum offers that this music "represents my pure vision because it's my music, but that vision also involves playing with other people and letting them do what they do and also hoping that they're trusting me to do what I do. But in the end, making a solo record is much more a conversation with myself than setting up an improvised dialogue with various collaborators. Everything has its own special place in my orbit."