JAB - Erg Herbe LP

Last year John Also Bennett appeared on three collaborative full length releases – the CV & JAB album Thoughts Of A Dot As It Travels A Surface for Shelter Press in February, a fourth Forma album Semblance for Kranky in July and Outside The Disc, a new album for his Seabat project with Forest Christenson in October. He also appeared on Christina Vantzou’s solo album No. 4 (Kranky) in April. Whilst work continues on these long running collaborations (as well as other projects with artists such as noted Minimalist composer / performer Jon Gibson), 2019 will start for John with his first full-length solo release – Erg Herbe.

JAB says the record was gestated for nearly a decade while he worked out how to fully express his own sound and ideas. He notes that “My personality is all over this music”, elaborating that “the goal is to create nice, strange, and thoughtful music that reflects a genuine inner vision of self. I’ve been recording solo music for a long time without releasing any of it because I’m not able to let anything out that doesn’t satisfy this criteria.” Finally, Erg Herbe began to emerge during 2017 and 2018, recorded alone during spare moments between collaborative projects. JAB uses a mixture of synthetic and organic instruments throughout the album, including modified Aphex Twin DX7 presets played using a just intonation tuning system, eurorack oscillators “tuned according to intuitive structures using intervals of 30 hz,” and a number of flutes including a Chinese “dizi” flute borrowed from his father, noted avant-garde poet and mail-artist John M. Bennett (a contemporary of New York underground poets Richard Kostelanetz and Steve Dalachinsky). Through this unique mixture JAB creates a record which moves outside the conventional. Part New York minimalism, part ambient, part classic electronic yet uniquely JAB.

Erg Herbe features original artwork by Zin Taylor, who JAB collaborated with previously on Thoughts Of A Dot As It Travels A Surface and is mastered by Rashad Becker at D+M. Pressed on 140gr vinyl with printed artwork on inner and outer reverse-board jacket.

Tracklist 

A1 "Planner's Beauty"  3:15
A2 "A Little Breeze"  6:17
A3 "Jacob's House"  4:31
A4 "Menu Music For Video Game"  6:45
B1 "Distant Patterns"  11:56
B2 "Chanterai Por Mon Coraige" 6:40
B3 "Erg Herbe"  3:38