Invisible Baby is easily the most out-there thing
Marco Benevento has ever released, and it's also the most accessible.
Benevento and his piano, Mellotron, "circuit bent toys," and mountain of other keyboards in various states of disrepair blasted through Leslie speakers and a big humming amp are accompanied by
Reed Mathis (
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey and
Tea Leaf Green) and drummers
Andrew Barr (from
the Slip) and
Matt Chamberlain (a session ace who's played with everyone from
David Bowie and
Morrissey to
Tori Amos and
David Torn). There are eight cuts here, all of them songs in the most proper sense of the word, completely drenched in sonic wackery, psychedelic spaciness, harmonic largesse, stretched rhythmic and dynamic play, and all manner of colors and textures. Is it jazz? It depends on what your definition of that is these days. It doesn't sound like anything else out there, and has more in common with people like
Kenny Werner and
Charlie Hunter,
the Bad Plus, and
E.S.T. than the standard jazz piano trio. In fact, this resembles the latter not even a bit. There are post-rockist elements at work here in the slowed tempos with somewhat studied pulses as well as volume excess in places, but that's not even the beginning of the story. There are elements of classical wonkery at play: the
Bartókian repetition in "If You Keep Asking Me," where the acoustic piano's middle and lower registers are enveloped in a kind of intervallic puzzle before they come sliding out toward the end with an entirely new melodic structure, is an example. There are gonzo electronic effects that feel more like analog than digital (even if they are) and are glitchy, dirty, sloppy, and greasy, interlocking with an expansive knowledge and studied practice of the standards book (if only for the purpose of violation), as on "Ruby."