Chris Prescott was recently interviewed on KCSB during the Radio Causeway show. This 30 minute feature can be heard from the streaming link on the Radio Causeway page. Topics discussed are the new Montalban Quintet album, the Systems Officer tour, and the upcoming Jade Shader album of final recordings from Terrin Durfey.
http://radiocauseway.org/radiocauseway/2011/9/17/chris-prescott-montalban-quintet-sept-20-2011.html
‘Besa Sorta’ was featured on Washington D.C.’s The Vinyl District this past week. They have a ton of great free MP3 downloads to check out. You can find it here. Enjoy!
PINBACK, BUT CLASSIER.
Chris Prescott, formerly of one of my all time favourite bands Pinback, is uh, back, with a lot more people and a lot more instruments. With the help of other former Pinbackians, as well as a few others including two who appear to be family (Carl Prescott on many horns, Marjorie Prescott on cello) Chris is putting his studies in jazz drumming to good use with this new jazzy indie rock project called The Montalban Quintet.
They aren’t exactly what you’d expect to hear until you read up on Chris Prescott and his degree in Jazz Studies at UCSD. There is a faint hint of Pinback style near the beginning of the album but it mostly comes with the singing, which is sparse throughout the rest of the album. But hey, who needs vocals when you have so many instruments.
Instead of composing the rhythm out of syncopation they use more expected and on-beat phrasings of minimalist jazz to blend in with the indie rock, and even some classic rock like attributes.
And then there are the horns. **Flugaboner alert!**
I love Pinback, I love horns .. jazz fan or not I am already more than a little captivated by this album.
I received an email from the bands mailing list and I have basically convinced myself that it was one of the Pinback members who added me to it so that I can die happy knowing that I fell on their radar… be it the truth or not. I have lived with an intense Pinback obsession for as long as I can remember, relying on them to help me fall asleep each night I spent in a new apartment… so hearing this ever-so-relaxing new Pinback related product has me assured that I will sleep soundly once again.
Wait, I don’t mean they’re boring by that, just comforting. And pretty.
And probably wet dream-inspiring with all those horns.
The [ Montalban Quintet ] took me by surprise. Being familiar with the members’ other projects “ [ Pinback ] ~ [ No Knife ] ~ [ Boilermaker ] and others” I had certain expectations. It is really something else entirely. Of course, with this lineage of San Diego indie rock music there are traces of the regional sound, yet I have never heard anything quite like this. I absolutely love this album.
[ Montalban Quintet’s ] music is difficult to describe and impossible to categorize. In most cases horns have replaced the role of lead vocals and the vocals have taken the place of the horns. Strange and unexpected indeed. There is an interesting collage of sound including tape loops, various guitars, bass, drums, vibraphone, trumpet, saxophone, cello and an ethereal choir. Each section unfolds into the next as if the album is a continual piece of music.
There are elements of African music, minimalism, cinematic orchestral music, jazz and experimental rock. A combination that sounds like it might not work, yet it succeeds completely. [ Montalban Quintet’s ] debut album is a very strong release by a great new band. Perhaps the best thing you’ve never heard before… Check it out, you won’t be sorry.
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This self title includes the drummer from [ Pinback ] along with [ Kenseth Thibadeau ] and other members from past projects like [ No Knife ] and [ Sleeping People ]. Imagine the immediacy of Pinback, coupled with experimental jazz, great samples, and almost spaghetti western like influences. Check out the preview below “Feast Of The Manioc”.
– Mog’
Montalban Quintet’s rendition of ‘Lonnie’s Lament’ made its first appearance this past Sunday on FM949. Thanks Tim Pyles for playing the music! Give the station a call or drop them a note if you want to hear more. They love requests…
Request line: 619-570-1949
fm949studio@lincolnfinancialmedia.com
Hey there. We have received several CD orders from Germany and the Montalban Quintet track ‘Besa Sorta’ has started appearing in some DJ playlists. Who would have thought? We are happy to start growing an international listenership. Drop us a note if you are hearing us in distant lands!
Thanks and we hope to hear from you soon!
The short version: absolutely bloody loved it
The slightly longer version:
Montalban Quintet – Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet
Transformative music, I think I’m going to call it. It’s a new phrase – new to me anyway, and that’s all that counts – but it’s something you’re familiar with already. It’s the blues, it’s Leonard Cohen, it’s Joy Division. It’s all the music that is ostensibly full of sorrow but which somehow fills your chest so that you feel it swelling, bursting with pride. And it’s right here in the heart of the Montalban Quintet’s version of Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.
Perhaps confusingly, there are seven members of the Montalban Quintet. That’s to be expected though, as they’re not the first ensemble to bear that name. That would be a collection of five handrails in a stairwell in the University of California, San Diego. Hermelindo Montalban would play them like long, resonant strings, bowing away at them with a metal bar.
Now under most circumstances I’d really want to hear that. I’d feel like I was missing out. That’s just the sort of sound that I love getting lost in, the place where Alan Lamb and Charlegmagne Palestine intersect. But the thing is that the Montalban Quintet’s debut album is so good that I just don’t care. I’m happy with what I’ve got.
Look, do you get the significance of this? I’m happy with what I’ve got. This never happens.
The band play a really cinematic flavour of jazz. It’s very much of its time. This is one of the secrets of jazz that people don’t get. It’s not a music that carries its own history around with it, rather it’s created anew every time. For the Montalban Quintet, you can hear them reaching back through post-rock and into contemporary classical for their influences.
That’s never more clear than on their version of Gavin Bryars’ seminal Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet. It’s a classic of 20th century minimalism, based around a tape loop of a derelict and broken old man singing the title phrase. It sounds to me as if the Montalban Quintet have tightened up that loop – it doesn’t have all of the hesitancy in it that I remember. But the remarkable thing is that in doing so, they’ve made it swing. Not just that, but the tone of Chris Prescott’s trumpet is so pure and warm that the whole song becomes infused with a liquid joy. The most sorrowful of all songs has become exultant. Don’t miss this.
Doklands Daily Music Blog
http://cyberinsekt.livejournal.com/
Hey there. We put this up a week ago or so but here’s a link to the surf-centric Besa Sorta video. Fun stuff. Thanks to Pierce and Petra from Misfit Pictures!
