https://www.high-endrolex.com/18

Atlanta Stream New Album Nugrybauti in Full

Posted in audiObelisk on July 22nd, 2020 by JJ Koczan

atlanta

Netherlands-based heavy jammers Atlanta release their second album, Nugrybauti, this week through Lay Bare Recordings. The band features the guitar work of Pieter Holkenborg, who took part in Gary Arce‘s one-time European incarnation of Ten East — a Yawning Man jam that wasn’t, but it resulted in a cool album in 2016 — as well as drummer Bob Hogenelst of Birth of Joy and now Molassess, and bassist Sebas van Olst of Typhoon and Cool Genius, so that these dudes would get it together and know what they’re doing when jamming shouldn’t really be a surprise. Atlanta, however, have more than a pedigree of as-yet-underrated bands to offer. Having made their debut in 2018 with the 50-tapes-pressed Flamingo, they resurface through Lay Bare with a cohesive set of six-plus-one instrumental progressions, some longer, some shorter, all exploratory in an at least semi-improvised fashion. The bass or the guitar or the drums start off, the others join in, and they go until the going’s done. It should be a familiar process to those whose heads have been blown out once or twice by modern heavy psychedelia, but there’s again, there’s more here than superficially meets the ear.

Because Nugrybauti — the title of which translates from Lithuanian to mean “to go wandering in search of mushrooms,” according to the band — does more than meander. Particularly driven by Hogenelst‘s drumming, a cut like the later “Lu Li” has a jazzy underpinning to coincide with its spacious guitar work (the echoes bringing to mind, yes, an Arce connection), and as the opening salvo shifts from “Marabou Blues” to “Honolulu Strut” and “Deventer Kunstweg,” the former referencing an African stork, the middle a seeming nod to its for-a-walk drum patternATLANTA Nugrybauti if not the volcanic lava roll of tone that consumes its second half, and the latter an art walk in the city of Deventer, the Netherlands, there’s an immediate sense of Atlanta inviting the listener to interact with the material on more than just an auditory level. It’s not necessarily Google-this-while-listening, which is what I did — yeah that’s right, I had to translate “kunstweg” — but the beginning point of a conversation in which the band hopes its audience will take part, as well as a conversation among the players themselves. That second conversation is the most vivid throughout Nugrybauti, but as Atlanta go wandering, they still find ways to add flourish to what would otherwise be raw jams.

To wit, the piano and backwards guitar on “Honolulu Strut” or the surfy echo on “Marabou Blues” and the fuzzy solo burn on as “Deventer Kunstweg” propels through its apex. Side B offers a likeminded trio of delights in “Dog Whistle Concert No. 5 in E Minor,” the aforementioned “Lu Li” and comparatively mellow closer “Firefly Lullaby” before the noise-laden bonus track “Postzegel Kwijt” takes hold to salt the earth around it and ensure those subdued free jazz vibes at the end of the song before get duly roughed up before they send listeners on their way. That’s hardly the first example of willful abrasion — “Dog Whistle Concert No. 5 in E Minor” could very well take its title from the pitch of the lead guitar in its back half, and the lumber of “Honolulu Strut” gives way to a ready-set-go freakout that seems to carry over into “Deventer Kunstweg” even as that song starts out with its steady and stately drumming before the next round of noodling begins. The bass might be the anchor to it all, or maybe that’s the drums, or maybe there is no anchor and their mushroom-bound journey is out there on its own, floating and diving in various directions as it goes.

That’s a fun thought, but the truth of Atlanta‘s sophomore LP is it’s more focused than that paints it, and just because they’re improvising doesn’t necessarily mean the three-piece don’t have an idea of where they want a given piece to end up. Still, they carry across their sound with a marked dynamic, expanding on live energy without sacrificing it, crafting material that is raw at the same time it demonstrates breadth and a colorful scope that, like each subtle turn of bass or each ghost pop of a snare, is just waiting for the listener to take hold it and be carried off who knows where. In the end, did they find the mushrooms? Yeah, it seems pretty clear they did.

You can check out the entirety of Nugrybauti on the player below, courtesy of Lay Bare Recordings. More PR wire background follows.

Please enjoy:

NUGRYBAUTI (Lithuanian): to become distracted during a task, literally to get lost wandering in search of mushrooms.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic drew a lethal amount of blood out of this year’s festivals and publicly attended live music performances ATLANTA planned to release their second recording (this time in the form of an LP vinyl album) at the infamous Mañana Mañana festival in The Netherlands.

Lay Bare Recordings was steadfast on not waiting and releasing it despite our hopes to present our fully improvised music live in front of curious and eager audience.
Because; well yeah, who knows what the future holds.

However intuitive, elementary and free spirited (the source of) our music and inspired our three separate musical energies are in a live setting, we decided to go along with the expertise of this kindred spirit.

Because now more than ever we DO feel the urge of bringing our drifting soundscapes in a time where every movement is restricted.

Misprints and off-centric vinyl could not distract us from getting our fans TOP NOTCH music and vinyl. So we acted and were eagerly waiting on a new batch of 250 pcs heavy weight coloured vinyl.

We finally can reveal what was kept under wraps!

So for you to walk, sit, stumble, float and/or lay along the travels of “Nugrybauti” the release of Atlanta’s 2nd (but first label endorsed) recording is out there NOW and purchasable here: https://laybarerecordings.com/release/nugrybauti-by-atlanta-lbr030

ATLANTA is:
Bob Hogenelst (Birth Of Joy/Molasses) – Drums
Sebas van Olst (Typhoon/Cool Genius) – Bass
Pieter Holkenborg (Automatic Sam/Ten East) – Guitar

Atlanta on Thee Facebooks

Atlanta on Bandcamp

Lay Bare Recordings website

Tags: , , , ,