The Spike Band - It Is What (EP)

So, how can a band that hasn't played together, even been in the same room together for the past two years, make a new EP?

taking fragments (the band itself being fragmented across the country...)

fragments from live recordings, melodies, small moments of real-time music,

mostly forgotten

cut, rounded, re-colored like pieces of fabric, scraps, clips, laid out to craft collages

it was always a "live" band, moving, different songs, different sounds, in motion

these brief miniatures, as I imagined, could relate to one another like

ever changing shadows cast by a mobile

& this is by no means an original epiphany

the cut-ups of Gysin & Burroughs, the splice jobs of Teo Macero & Miles Davis

especially "In A Silent Way" & "He Loved Him Madly"

the drifting patterns of Terry Riley, Steve Reich

"Music For Airports" by Brian Eno

(this could be called "Music For Sushi Bars")

Jon Hassell's Fourth World music, his effected trumpet landscapes

ultimately, I missed making music with my friends,

dudes whose own artistry was & continues to be something...

I feel blessed to have been a part of....a fragment

so, no this ain't the band the way we sounded

it is what...it is

**a few notes**

the voices (the incredible voices) heard on the last track are from the member's of

Rev. Crenshaw's Memphis congregation, a recording made by Alan Lomax,

available on a collection (where I first heard it) called "Roots of the Blues"

everything else was by The Spike Band...

if you want to hear our more conventional stuff, you can get it here

Download our new (& free) EP here-

"It Is What"