Maillist
FOCUS ON: On Fillmore
- Official Website >>
- Label: Locust Music >>
- Genre: Avant Garde/Experimental
"a solar humming that reflects a new breed of elastic minimalism."
"The duos first recording is still probably the groups most bizarre document to date - an improvisation that sounds like it was played on instruments from the Civil War, and in fact could very well be the antique soundtrack from that time. "
In the Summer of 2000, Jim ORourke was invited to perform his songs at the Melt Down Festival in London. This required the assistance of his favorite rhythm section - longtime friend and collaborator, bassist Darin Gray and percussionist Glenn Kotche. Of course they brought down the sold-out house that evening. What we are interested in, here, is what happened after the performance.
Jim re-joined his first Sonic Youth tour, and Darin and Glenn started their journey back to their mid-western homes . . .
What was supposed to be a standard 6 hour hop back across the Atlantic, turned into a near 24 hour hellride that left these two stranded in a Florida airport, before they were to reach their front doors. Not only did this fight for sanity galvanize Darin and Glenns friendship, it was in these tortured hours that they carved out their plans for their new music exploration, something they could call their own . . . .an upright bass and percussion duo that they would call On Fillmore .
With their concepts in tow, Darin and Glenn started their first traverse as On Fillmore . The duos first recording is still probably the groups most bizarre document to date - an improvisation that sounds like it was played on instruments from the Civil War, and in fact could very well be the antique soundtrack from that time. But as musicians fate would have it, the long stretch of Interstate 55 that divided Darin and Glenn seemed too far to justify a monogamous band relationship. In late 2000, Glenn was invited to help breath new life into Wilco, and Darin unveiled his secret affair, the electricity-bleeding Grand Ulena.
Before either of these two new commitments fully consumed our two heroes, On Fillmore recorded their second record for the Quakebasket label in early 2001. This time around, however, the bands approach was much different. On Fillmore had completely replaced their previous improvisations with highly disciplined song structure. With Glenn adding vibes to his percussion arsenal, and Darin finally fully unleashing his "Sun Ra vs. the Melvins" roots, On Fillmore created a solar humming that reflected a new breed of elastic minimalism.
In the Summer of 2004, On Fillmore headed out for their first tour, in support of their new record, Sleeps with Fishes. Culled from over a hundred hours (perhaps years?) of collective intimacy as well as distance, On Fillmores third record relies only on the string and tuned metal combination, while layering beds of field recordings from the Chicago and Mississippi rivers, resulting in a pixilated paean to lullabies, location, and liberation. Sleeps with Fishes alchemizes the brotherhood of Thelonious Monks "Ugly Beauty" with the gurgling reduction of contemporary compositional musics at 16 RPM.
