The Bad Pus have been around for a while, but I only recently discovered them, through using Pandora (personalised online radio). They’re so good that I’m annoyed that I’ve only just found out about them!
They’re a 3-piece from the US, piano, double bass, drums and every player is amazingly talented. Rather than re-writing their biog, here’s what they say:
The Bad Plus is bassist Reid Anderson, pianist Ethan Iverson, and drummer David King. All are from the Midwest and have known each other since their teens. Nonetheless, it is only after spending their formative 20s apart that they reunited in late 2000 to play a weekend club date in Minneapolis.
The chemistry was immediate and obvious. They planned a second gig and a one-day recording session and The Bad Plus was born.
On this same first gig, the nascent group played their first rock cover, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Thus began The Bad Plus trademark of complementing original repertoire with their takes on mainstream pop “standards” including ABBA, Black Sabbath, the Bee Gees, Queen, Blondie, Aphex Twin, Neil Young, and Bjork.”
Not only are they hugely talented musicians, they also record with Tchad Blake, one of the most innovative engineers of the past 20 years. His recording technique gives their music the perfect platform - you feel the bass and drums in your chest and the piano melodies weave their way into your mind.
Listen to 1979 Semi-Finalist on their album ‘Give’ - it’s about as close to musical perfection as you can get.
Favoring group improvisation over individual solos, eschewing all jazz cliches, The Bad Plus rip into each set with a combination of Swiss-watch precision, the spectrum of dynamics and reckless abandon.”
Their music is accessible and immediate. While sometimes this can a mean short shelf life, where you over-listen to a record for a couple of weeks and then get bored of it, The Bad Plus are so good you’ll want to come back to their music again and again.
Listening to David King’s drumming reminds me how much a live drummer can add to a recording. I’d love to get a drummer to contribute to Cities of Foam but at the moment we do all our own recording, and recording drums well is a craft that I’ve yet to master…
Anyway, enough gushing, here they are are on Jools Holland:
And here they cover Aphex Twin:
Bad Plus website | Bad Plus on mySpace | Bad Plus Blog
Bad bad bad! Not bad meaning bad but bad meaning good : )
0 Responses to “The Bad Plus - jaw droppingly good”