More Than Posthuman – Rise of the Mojosexual Cotillion
Our version of what R and B might sound like today if live bands hadn’t been derailed by sampling technology in the Black community somewhere around 1977.
We’ve got all the freeform raging horns and guitars of our previous albums only compositionally compressed into these groovevicious post-everythang song forms.
Notes
DISC 1
OTHER ARRANGEMENTS
Mommy whuts a mojosexual? Anyone who spends an entire summer listening only to a bootleg of Chaka Khan’s club hits. Anybody in Burnt Sugar. Anybody from New Orleans now in 47 states trying to maintain. Katrina wasn’t even on the radar when this song was written but the lyrics now seem strangely, strongly related. Not so much prophetic as anthemic in that regard we hope.
VOCALS Jeremiah Abiah, Lisala, Justice Dilla-X GUITAR Rene Akan DRUMS Chris Eddleton VIOLIN & STRING ARR. Mazz Swift PERCUSSION Satch Hoyt MPC2000 Napoleon Maddox ALTO Matana Roberts RHYMES D-Maxx BASS Greg Tate PIANO Vijay Iyer SYNTH Bruce Mack WORDS&MUSIC Tate
GOD IS BLACK
‘Your rogue state, seen the residents, looking like cuz whose hair dont kink. His god is Black, his second lingo english, so justice denied on the strength of that premise.’ Or from paddyrollers to the Patriot Act, it aint too good as my man Mutabaruka sez, to stay in a whiteman’s country too long. Especially if you favor The Koran.
BTW Rene gives Curtis Mayfield and Ernie Isley a run for their money on this one right?
VOCALS Dilla-X GUITARS Akan, Tate BASS Jared Michael Nickerson AcBASS Jason Tobias DiMatteo DRUMS Eddleton PIANO Myles Reilly FLUTE Satch Hoyt WORDS&MUSIC Tate
JULIETTE AND ROMEO
Kinda Aretha, kinda attempted infidelity. And Lisala’s voice, man, damn.
GUITARS Tate, Akan BASS Nickerson DRUMS Eddleton Elec-PIANO Iyer FLUTE/PERCUSSION Hoyt TRUMPET Lewis “Flip” Barnes TENOR Avram Fefer WORDS&MUSIC Tate
NAOMI’S LULLABY
An enchanted song for Jared’s mom and niece where he and Matana get to channeling–Bird, Jaco, Johnny Hartman, Carmen Macrae like that.
BASS/COMPOSITION Jared Michael Nickerson ALTO Matana Roberts
KUNGFUCIOUS
Love letter to a headstrong and schizophrenic mother of two. And another reason songs were made to contain pain you can’t express in the real world. D-Maxx ripping your heart out with those lyrix. And Lisala’s voice man, damn.
VOCALS Lisala RHYMES D-Maxx GUITARS Akan AcBASS Keith Witty DRUMS Trevor Holder LYRICS Tate
ENJOY BEING VISIBLE Most of there lyrics were stolen from a book of Zen affirmations. Somi we stole from her own sublime project. VOCALS Somi GUITAR Tate PERCUSSION Hoyt ALTO Roberts WORDS&MUSIC Tate
THE BALLAD OF FEMA, KATRINA AND SATCHMO
Self explanatory and also written and recorded before the level 5 event. Yet nowhere near as didactic as it could have been. The music Rene wrote a decade ago while meditating on the East River. Mazz just arbitrarily started singing these lyrics the first time she heard the music in her headphones. ‘When you cry yourself a river don’t come crying one to me.’ Mean & spooky.
VOCAL/LYRICS Mazz Swift GUITAR/MUSIC Rene Akan BASS DiMatteo DRUMS Qasim Naqvi ALTO Micah Gaugh TUBA Jesse Dulman
AR KANDY(Blusher) A tribute to A.R. Kane who like us believe its time for a fruitful conversation between Sun Ra and Morrissey. VOCALS/LYRICS Dilla-X GUITARS Akan BASS/ DRUM PGM Tate DRUMS Eddleton
DISBANDED GYPSIES
For Jimi, Billy and Buddy and every girl who ever rocked your world.
VOCALS Jeremiah RHYMES Omega Moon BASS Tate GUITARS Akan DRUMS Eddleton MPC2000 Maddox TENOR Fefer EFX VOC Dilla-X PIANO Iyer TRUMPET Barnes.
THE FINAL DAZE
Once upon a time there was a band called Tar Mack. Once upon a time it rehearsed in my living room. Then Micah added some alto and Carl Hancock Rux read pages 44-45 from his novel Asphalt, the most abstract novel by a negro since The System of Dante’s Hell.
Reading from his novel ‘ASPHALT’: Carl Hancock Rux EFX VOC Dilla-X CHANT D-Maxx GUITAR Akan BASS Tate ALTO Gaugh
STEPHANIES MOOD RING Micah’s lyrics and vocals. Bruce’s organ makes it almost more Ethiopian than Nyabinghi. GUITAR Akan BASS/DRUM PGM Tate VOCAL&LYRICS Gaugh ALTO Roberts ORGAN Mack
DISC TWO
OTHER ARRANGEMENTS REMIX
C’mon, It was practically begging to happen. Vijay displaying his disco song factory roots. For Real. Like some ol’ Brill building type sheet, only West Coast. He heard that beat and fell into back in his Berkeley salad days.
VOCALS Jeremiah Abiah, Lisala, Justice Dilla-X GUITAR Rene Akan DRUMS Chris Eddleton VIOLIN & STRING ARR. Mazz Swift PERCUSSION Satch Hoyt MPC2000 Napoleon Maddox ALTO Matana Roberts RHYMES D-Maxx BASS Greg Tate PIANO Vijay Iyer SYNTH Bruce Mack WORDS&MUSIC Tate
SECOND PREMONITION
A Bruce Mack song but very rooted in a Myth-Science Arkestra tradition.
PIANO/SYNTH/COMPOSITION Bruce Mack BASS Nickerson AcBASS DiMatteo TRUMPET Barnes Jr. ALTO Roberts TENOR Gaugh BARI Paula Henderson DRUMS Eddleton
SLEEP IS THE COUSIN OF DEF Nas and Joe Henderson’s Power To The People kinda be on your mind sometimes. Beans rocks the mic. RHYMES Beans TRUMPET Lewis Flip Barnes VIOLIN Mazz Swift ALTO Matana Roberts TUBA Jesse Dulman TENOR SAXOPHONES Petre Radu Scafaru & Micah Gaugh ARCO BASS Jason DiMatteo DRUMS Qasim Naqvi & Chris Eddleton GUITAR Rene Akan FENDER RHODES Vijay Iyer MPC 2000 Napoleon Maddox, FENDER BASS Greg Tate.
GENTRIFICATION
Once upon a time Duke Ellington wrote a song called Harlem Air Shaft. Once upon a time called now Greg Tate writes a song about the shafting of Harlem’s air property rights and the prospect of a Harlem intifada. Mikel Banks rocks the hook and Justice Dilla-X improvises his own brand of Lovers Rock.
MILITANT VOCALS Banks CROONER VOCALS/LYRICS Dilla-X DRUMS Eddleton GUITAR Akan BASS/ DRUM PGM/MILITANT LYRICS Tate
WRETCHED OF THE EARTH PAGE 88
Only Rene Akan would set a page out of Fanon and a poem about a slave revolt by Aime Cesiare to black death metal. Only Micah could render it so fey. Thank our newest edition on the MPC 2000 Napoleon Maddox for the Ladysmith Black Mambazoesque bric-o-lage.
COMPOSITION/GUITARS Akan VOCALS/LYRICS (adapted from a poem by Aime Cesaire) Micah Gaugh BASS Nickerson DRUMS Meret Koehler MPC2000 Maddox
ENJOY BEING VISIBLE 2.0
Last summer I saw Akiba Solomon on a panel about Black women’s self- image and the fashion industry with Iman and Karrine Superhead Steffens. The truth will shine.
VOCALS/NARRATIVE Akiba Solomon GUITAR Akan BASS Tate SYNTH BASS Eric Ronick GUITAR Kirk Douglas DRUMS Koehler
GET A LIFE Our nod to to RL Burnside and Junior Kimbrough with the nomadic diva Imani Uzuri making her pain sound like your golden asswhupping. VOCALS Imani Uzuri GUITAR/COMPOSITION Tate DRUMS Banks BASS Nickerson LYRICS Tate & Uzuri
TO SLEEP WITH COMPLICATED WOMEN
Once there was a band called Women in Love and it rehearsed in my bedroom. Featuring the ubiquitous Mikel Banks, last heard on drums on the previous cut.
VOCALS Mikel Banks GUITAR Tate WORDS&MUSIC Tate
EXHIBIT A
A fine, crusty and feisty etude by Rene Akan which musically pummels all betrayers of the revolution. GUITAR/COMPOSITION Akan DRUMS Eddleton
BE4REAL
Yet another Jared original about what it feels like to be a woman minding her own business in Brooklyn. And man, can we talk about Lisala’s voice!!
VOCALS Lisala BASS Nickerson DRUMS Deatoni Parks MPC2000 Maddox GUITAR Kirk Douglas IGNANT FOOLISHNESS Mikel Banks & D-Maxx STREET NOISE Harlem U.S.A. WORDS&MUSIC Nickerson
SHE’S GOT QUESTIONS
A brief if funky commentary about sleeping with one eye open in the house of love. Because hot grits, +lye soap are always an option and lorena bobbitt lives.
VOCALS Dilla-X DRUMS Eddleton BASS/DRUM PGM Tate TENOR Fefer GUITAR Akan
GOODYEAR RUBBER
In which Stefanie tells Carl about being 19 and married to a quite Nazi-ish Jewish sushi chef and Charlie Parker afficionado in a Topanga Canyon nudist colony where said husband would one day attempt suicide via hiri-kiri. All over a very funky episode Jared scripted for his bass and our horns to play like he Quincy Jones or some sheet.
BASS/COMPOSITION Nickerson DRUMS Eddleton TRUMPET Barnes ALTO Roberts TENOR Gaugh GUITAR Thom Loubet BARROOM BANTER Carl Hancock Rux & Stefanie Kelly.
CONDUCTION AND PRODUCTION Greg Tate ~ RECORDING Eric Ronick for Thinman Studios, DUMBO Brooklyn ~ MIXING Tate & Ronick ~ ART DIRECTON & DESIGN Kenya Robinson for MOJO KENYATTA ~ ART REMIX for SECOND PRESSING Amy Gail ~ EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Jared Michael Nickerson
Special Thanks and all our love to Brian Tate, Eric Ronick & Thin Man Studios, LaRonda Davis, Amy Gail, Beans, Imani Uzuri, Carl Hancock Rux, Alexandre Pierrepont, Lawrence D. Butch Morris for showing us The Way, Thomas Stanley, Bill Bragin & Sarah Hill, Alan Licht, Chris Goldsmith, the Burnt Sugar Posse, Friends & Families.
Press
“Burnt Sugar, Greg Tate’s “23rd-century R&B” collective, has attracted to its ranks such pathbreaking jazz musicians as Vijay Iyer, Matana Roberts and Avram Fefer. The band’s sprawling, anarchic sensibility is best witnessed live, but this studio effort does them justice. The tracks veer from disco to death metal to noise and jazzy abstraction. If you would, imagine P-Funk forming a book club with Bad Brains, Curtis Mayfield and the Mothers of Invention to discuss the work of Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire.” David R. Adler Jazztimes
Tracks
Disc 1
- Other Arrangements
- God is Black
- Juliette and Romeo
- Naomi’s Lullaby
- Kungfucious
- Enjoy Being Visible
- The Ballad of Fema, Katrina & Satchmo
- A R Kandy
- Disbanded Gypsies
- The Final Daze
- Stepanie’s Mood Ring
Disc 2
- Rise Up ( Remix )
- Second Premonition
- Be4Real
- She’s Got Questions
- Gentrification
- Wretched of The Earth
- Enjoy Being Visible 2.0
- Get A Life
- To Sleep With Complicated Women
- Exhibit A
- Sleep is the Cousin of Def
- Goodyear Rubber