Girish Mahajan (Editor)

At the Center

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Released
  
24 May 2005

At The Center (2005)
  
Autoimmune (2008)

Producer
  
Jack Dangers

Genres
  
Breakbeat, Nu jazz

Length
  
56:41

Release date
  
24 May 2005

Label
  
Thirsty Ear Recordings

At the Center httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaenthumb6

Artists
  
Meat Beat Manifesto, Jack Dangers, Craig Taborn, Dave King, Peter Gordon

Similar
  
RUOK?, Satyricon, Actual Sounds + Voices, Storm the Studio, Storm the Studio RMXS

At the Center is an album by Meat Beat Manifesto, released in 2005 as part of the "Blue Series" of Thirsty Ear records fusing jazz with electronica.

Contents

Jazz elements had been featured in occasional Meat Beat Manifesto songs over the years. But At The Center is the first outright jazz album in the Meat Beat Manifesto catalog, with bandleader Jack Dangers's collaborators being a trio of prominent jazz players. The album is mostly funky and fusion oriented, with a few abstract or free-jazz leaning songs. It's entirely instrumental apart from scattered vocal samples, notably on two songs featuring vintage recordings of poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading newspaper classified advertisements (the album's notes misidentify Ferlinghetti as Kenneth Rexroth).

At the Center earned mostly positive reviews from critics of both jazz and electronic music, but Dangers opted to not continue his exploration of jazz on subsequent Meat Beat Manifesto albums.

Credits

Musicians

  • David King (of The Bad Plus): Drums, percussion
  • Peter Gordon: Flute
  • Craig Taborn: Steinway grand piano, Fender Rhodes electric piano, clavinet, Hammond B3 organ
  • Jack Dangers: Bass, Bass flute, Bass clarinet, "everything else" (i.e., samples, synthesizer, shortwave radio, percussion, etc).
  • Kenneth Rexroth reading the want ads recorded by Henry Jacobs for KPFA, 1957. Courtesy of Henry Jacobs.

    • Technical personnel

  • Artwork and Album Design: Robert Beam
  • Producer and engineer: Jack Dangers

    • Track listing

    1. "Wild" - 5:18
    2. "Flute Thang" - 4:47
    3. "Murita Cycles" - 4:13
    4. "Want Ads One" - 4:27
    5. Voice: Lawrence Ferlinghetti
    6. "Blind" - 5:16
    7. "Musica Classica" - 3:34
    8. "Bohemian Grove" - 5:20
    9. "United Nations ETC. ETC." - 3:57
    10. "Want Ads Two" - 4:25
    11. Voice: Lawrence Ferlinghetti
    12. "The Water Margin" - 6:34
    13. "Shotgun! (Blast to the Brain)" - 4:59
    14. "Granulation 1" - 3:51

    Songs

    1Wild5:18
    2Flute Thang4:48
    3Murita Cycles4:14

    References

    At the Center Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA