Abrams, Joshua
Magnetoception
Out-of-print on vinyl for a decade+, Magnetoception is the 3rd album, & 1st double album, in the saga of Natural Information Society. In a Berwyn, Illinois attic, February 2013, Abrams, guitarists Emmett Kelly & Jeff Parker, & grand master drummer Hamid Drake gathered around vintage Neumanns & a woodstove to record the nucleus of Magnetoception live to 2-track. Beamed-in over the next year at Abrams' Chicago home studio were Lisa Alvarado's harmonium, Ben Boye's electric autoharp, Drake's conga drum, & solo pieces by Abrams for harp & clarinet. Thanks to Marc Masters championing the album for Pitchfork's bygone column The Out Door & its appearance in The Wire magazine's 2015 Rewind, Magnetoception moved the project from the recesses of the underground into realms of greater visibility. From the 2015 Eremite press release: The artist's first large scale work on vinyl, Magnetoception began as a commission by Eremite for Abrams to make a double LP based in extended performances by an ensemble of Abrams, guitarists Emmett Kelly & Jeff Parker, & drummer Hamid Drake. Abrams's compositions are a fascinating nexus of ideas from non-western traditional musics, minimalism & jazz designed to catalyze his musicians toward a single group-mind organism of sound. On his 2012 album Represencing Abrams presented his music in capsule-length pieces realized by duo & trio groupings drawn from a pool of a dozen musicians. Magnetoception presents one ensemble methodically unfolding his compositions over longer durations. The performances intricately layer rhythm, melody & drone into sonic textiles of extraordinary expressive breadth, by turns dense or spacious, repetitive or indeterminate, clattering or placid.