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The Cosmic Range
The Gratitude Principle
Idee Fixe - 2019
Michael Panontin
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If you have ever been referred to - as I often have, though in much less flattering words - as a 'connoisseur of fine freakdom', then the Cosmic Range is probably just your thing. Matthew 'Doc' Dunn's sprawling collection of musicians, which includes among others guitarist Max Turnbull (aka Slim Twig) and ex-Martha and the Muffin saxophonist Andy Haas, dishes out a weirdly intoxicating stew of spiritual jazz, fusion, Afro-funk, psychedelia and even a bit of prog for good measure.
Dunn of course is no stranger to the New Weird America, having logged time with the likes of psych-folk duo MV & EE as well as stalwarts like Woods, Sunburned Hand of the Man and Kevin Morby. But after years of churning out solo CD-ROMs, the talented multi-instrumentalist decided he needed to shake things up a bit.
"I got really tired of working alone, [and] with a lot of the underground CD-R stuff I was doing, I got into a bad place. I started to feel like it was all for nothing," he told Bandcamp. "I've always had this dream of putting a studio band together, like a Wrecking Crew kind of thing. Everyone in this band has such a crazy skill set, and it was like, 'We can do the stuff that I'm writing'."
The Gratitude Principle is the octet's second full-length release. The disc gets straight to the point with the opening 'Palms to Heaven', a nine-and-a-half-minute throwdown of throbbing basslines and swirling organ solos parsed midway with Isla Craig's lingering vocal, a sort of late-sixties collision of Miles Davis and Anthony Braxton with the Soft Machine and Pink Floyd. Ditto for the 'The Observers', a somewhat messier mix of music that veers a little closer, rhythmically at least, to Davis' Bitches Brew, while updating the organ with a spacier, and at times intrusive, synthesizer. Things really come to a head - in glorious fashion, actually - on the closing title track, a less daunting but equally exhilarating piece that brings it all together, bass, sax, organ and synth, into a dazzling finish.
This will likely be a bit too weird for the folks over at the Polaris Music Prize. But 'The Observers' was recently included on Emily Bick's Adventures in Sound and Music mixtape for The Wire, so perhaps there will be room for The Gratitude Principle on their vaunted year-end list in January.
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