“Talibam” (Used 4 times)

This Wednesday, the one and only Matthew Mottel will wrap up his Artist-In-Residency at ISSUE Project Room with a FREE performance from the formidable powerhouse of insanity that is TALIBAM! Fresh off a jaunt to Bucharest and Italy, the dangerous duo will unveil a set of new material in "peak zone mode" (Mottel's words -- you best believe 'em!).

In honor of this closing of ceremonies, the boys have shot me over another droplet of dopeness to toss into the good ocean that is the FMA. Probably my fav track off their fantastic ESP-Disk'-released album Boogie in the Breeze Blocks, "Slap Yr Boots On! Oysters Await" is a whirlwind schizophrenic sprint that packs in some primetime Talibam! signifiers in top form...all in under 3 mintues. The never-gets-old hilarity of Matt and Kevin Shea's manic free association stage banter (sourced from a concert recording) serves as the basic germ for the song, appearing in the raw before being detonated and sent spinning in every which way. Check it below, in the company of a couple more choice Boogie gems.

Also, as a little bonus, hit the jump to peep a longish excerpt from a convo Mr. Mottel and I had about Talibam! back in late April. See ya Wednesday!

For the months of April - June, Matt Mottel is Artist-in-Residence at ISSUE Project Room. Co-founder of the inimitable force that is Talibam!, Mottel has long been a stalwart figure in the NYC improv scene. His ever-expanding list of luminary collaborators includes Cooper-Moore, Tom Bruno, CSC Funk Band, Rhys Chatham, Karole Armitage, Chris Corsano, Awesome Color, Akron/Family, Jeffrey Lewis, Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear), Kenny Wollesen, and Ras Moshe.

To preview his newest commissioned work -- to be unveiled in a free concert at ISSUE on May 7 -- Matt has shared an exclusive excerpt of a self-recorded rehearsal in the space in which he teases out motifs and ideas for the developing installation.

Check a portion of a chat I had, held over the course of several hours (and several glasses of scotch) here. Peep a full description of the project below:

"Matthew Mottel, a native New Yorker, was influenced by many cultural ideas and people to shape his present. He has discovered that his father, Syeus Mottel, a photographer and theater director, documented many of the people that would have strong cultural value for his son. Syeus Mottel, a journalistic photographer, has one of the great underpublished narratives of cultural and political history of the late 1960's - 70's. His son has focused on his archive to create a contemporary 'cinema of images' that presents this photographic record not just as 'pictures on a wall' but in an environmental 'dream state' that hallucinates visual photographic interactions between Martin Luther King, the Silver Apples, John Cage, Ornette Coleman, journalistic photography at political rallies of the late 60's/70's as well as iconic landscapes of America such as Big Sur, San Francisco, Washington DC  and New York City.

Matthew Mottel will create an environment where photography will be digitally altered and projected at ISSUE Project Room with a backing soundscape that Mottel will perform with 'electronically affected' piano, oscillators and samplers. In a sense, his music is a personal take on the sum of his influences. The Silver Apples, John Cage, and Ornette Coleman factor heavily into his sound world, but his father did not introduce these artists directly to him. Instead, it must have been 'influence via osmosis' as these artists and more appear in Syeus Mottel's photographic record of where and who he hung out with during this period.

'Osmotic Imagination' is a merger of visual stimuli and sonic alchemy. It attempts to contextualize contemporary culture to that of the past not by treating these images 'unaltered in stoic preservation' but to mutate historical documents and imagine a new life and future between people/places/time/thought of a past generation that has been fermented in 'standard TIME MAGAZINE ideology' that has not created a progression to betterment, but an end point. This work is a candid study of the past, and re-configures it for today's society to hopefully inspire further social, artistic and political development."

When flipping though singles in the new bin how do you not pick up a 45 for a band that has got 4 alternate names on it? CSC Funk Band, aka CSC Racket, aka Newtown Creek Playboys, aka Thrift Store Find, aka Fuck The Funk Band. Whatever they want to call it their Bad Banana Bread single has been burning holes in my playlists ever since. 

By any name CSC is the real deal, a sweet spaced out, minimalist, heavy psyche funk collective rolling nine deep, compiled by Colin Langenus from USA is a Monster and Matt Motel from Talibam! which features many of the finest from the Brooklyn underground. Including Dave Kadden (Invisible Circle) playing an effected obo that will send your brain into opium-drenched wanderings though your wildest Ethiopique dreams. Plus Jimmy Thomson (GWAR) on percussion, keeping time that will blow your mind, moving in and out of sick boogaloo breaks and head bobbing struts that are so good they make you want to smack a sucka.

We have been hearing all kinds of great throw back funk and soul coming out of Brooklyn for minute now. While the Dap-Tone/Truth and Soul crowd go after the funk with style, class and sick matching outfits, CSC forgets all that and takes the George Clinton approach (+ more acid) and just wants to get funked up, taking a riff, finding their groove and pounding your jaded DIY loft dwelling ass into dance floor submission. And that’s where my like turned to love, while I was being forced into an epileptic dance fit at Market Hotel (R.I.P.) on an Todd P bill where CSC was opening for Awesome Color and Tyvek. After speaking to Colin for a minute and exchanging some emails with Jimmy I was stoaked to be able to bring them up to the WFMU studios for a live set. Big thanks to Jason Sigal recording the session.