We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Moten​/​L​ó​pez​/​Cleaver

by Fred Moten / Brandon López / Gerald Cleaver

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD  or more

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 25 Reading Group releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Blue Monday, contradictions (plays lu xun, žižek, baudrillard and beckett), The Hands of Grace, Blood Karaoke, Moten/López/Cleaver, Рясні дрова, Decadence, Oceanic/E.L.M., and 17 more. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $74.75 USD or more (35% OFF)

     

  • Moten/López/Cleaver LP
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Edition of 500 LPs.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Moten/López/Cleaver via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
2.
b jenkins 03:02
3.
b jenkins 02:24
4.
5.
6.
laura harris 08:46
7.
surfacing 11:38

about

Reading Group is thrilled to introduce the debut LP from a new improvising group of three singular artists: Fred Moten (voice), Brandon López (double bass), and Gerald Cleaver (drums). López and Cleaver have been improvising together as a duo for a number of years, over which they’ve developed a secret, unspoken language of organically growing repetitive figures in a wide range of sonic palettes. López and Cleaver have long been recognized as some of the most vital voices in contemporary experimental improvised music, each with dozens of recordings and frequent performances in New York and abroad. They are joined here by Fred Moten, the inimitable poet, theorist, critic, and 2020 MacArthur Fellow. Moten’s presence, voicing poetry in an improvisatory syncopation with the instrumentalists, raises the music to third plane, putting the record in a broader collection of legendary spoken-word jazz records from Gil Scott-Heron and Amiri Baraka to the contemporary energies of Moor Mother and Irreversible Entanglements.

Recorded at GSI Studios in Manhattan at the height of the pandemic and in the immediate wake of the George Floyd Rebellion, this self-titled LP represents only the first time the trio had improvised together in a studio setting, after a one-off performance at the 2019 Vision Festival. The record is a shimmering image of the lightning that resulted in the meeting of these three minds. The dark timbres and churning pulses stay at a perpetually restrained simmer, only seldom disturbing the rolling surface of the record’s seven pieces. This constant interplay between the music’s turbulent growth and the momentary flashes of bright aliveness are reflected brilliantly in the original painting by artist/writer Renee Gladman that graces the record’s cover. A mysterious, vital work from three brilliant artists.

credits

released April 14, 2022

recorded by Jason Rostkowski at GSI Studios, 2020
mixed by Cecilia López
mastered by Matt Bachmann
cover image: Renee Gladman, "Untitled Score (orange yellow)", pastel and ink on paper, 2020
Reading Group, rg23
www.readinggroup.co

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Reading Group New York, New York

Reading Group, record label started in New York in 2016.

You may also visit the website:

contact / help

Contact Reading Group

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Moten/López/Cleaver, you may also like: