Further into the Corner

Beginning with last year’s Translation Has Failed album No Duality, Nathan Hubbard’s been on a tear releasing one album per month in the lead-up to his fiftieth birthday in May, ranging from free jazz to doom metal to music for large percussion ensemble, all reflective of “an overflowing archive and dreams of legacy,” as Hubbard himself put it in a recent profile on the series. The latest in that line is Further into the Corner, the debut record by Hubbard’s new avant-jazz trio with Dan Clucas on cornet and myself on guitar.

The San Diego-based Hubbard, “a revelation of the California scene in the past years” (Jazzosphere), has performed with GE Stinson, Vinny Golia and Steuart Liebig, among countless others. “Hubbard’s drumming is pure 21st Century stuff,” writes All About Jazz. “An accomplished composer who’s also well-versed in contemporary orchestral percussion, indie rock, and more conventional types of jazz, Hubbard is capable of moving in any direction at any given moment.”

Clucas is a cornetist and violinist based in Pasadena known for his “sense of chaos and daring” (One Final Note) who has played with Nels Cline, Taylor Ho Bynum, Jeff Kaiser, Damon Smith and many more.

I first met Nathan a decade or so back when I was playing in a noise band and somehow convinced him to sit in with us once or twice. It must not have been a total trainwreck since he asked me to play on the debut from his new band Territory Games as part of his birthday series.

Hubbard reached out to me last June about recording some skronky punk jazz in the vein of Naked City, the Lounge Lizards and Universal Congress Of. One recording session in a cement warehouse later, Further into the Corner was born. At various points the names Sonic Youth, Painkiller and the Tiny Bell Trio were mentioned, but the final product is firmly our own, mixing original compositions by all three of us with group improvisations in a myriad of styles, from frenetic free jazz freakouts and smokey pseudo-noir to Ornette Coleman-style harmolodic ensemble playing and demented bossa nova. There’s a little something for everyone, guaranteed to please no one on this record.

Simultaneously intense, hilarious, complex and primitive, Further into the Corner is perfectly suited for fans of John Zorn, Saccharine Trust or Mr. Bungle.

Catch us up and down the west coast this May, and in the meantime keep those feet hot.