#charles rumback

[dustedmagazine]

Elijah McLaughlin and Caleb Willitz — Morning Meditations/Evening Abstractions (Centripetal Force)

Elijah McLaughlin, best known for his improvisations on six- and 12-string acoustic guitar, here switches to electric and brings in pianist and tape manipulator Caleb Willitz, for an expansive set that leans towards jazz but includes elements of rock, post-rock and acid folk.

In the basic set up, McLaughlin plays an electric, often-effected guitar and Willitz does double duty, playing piano with his hands while manipulating tape delay with a foot pedal. The duo expands on several tracks to include a handful of Chicago-based improvisers—Ryley Walker/Black Duck drummer Charles Rumback plays on four of eight cuts, while ex-Mahjongg drummer Josh Johannpeter mans the kit on another. The saxophonist Edward Wilkerson Jr. blows in to part two of “Vespers,” turning what had been a moody, turbulent post-rock epic into something closer to jazz, while bass clarinetist Jason Stein weaves lovely counterpoints into the surge and dissonance of closer “Awakening.”

The disc starts in turbulence. The whole first half rages and surges intemperately (but gorgeously), sounding like Rangda or the louder iterations of Six Organs of Admittance or even Dirty Three. The two-part “Vesper,” for instance, begins with languid, reticent guitar and low rumbles of piano, but quickly gains heft and volume. Rumback’s drumming swells and recedes, a swirling current rather than a linear progression, as the guitar tangles and untangles from the piano. The piece is split into two sections, the first more free form, the latter, sharply delineated and led by Wilkerson’s exhilarating runs on sax. It changes markedly when he enters, heating up and exploring a larger palette of sounds. “Weaving of Smoke” is a big departure, paced by a light but urgent flurry of drumming (that’s Johannpeter) and a more liberal use of electronics. The guitar here is quick and agitated, a rushing pulse against lingering piano tones. It’s a quiet piece, but not a calm one.

The second half of the album is more serene, beginning with “Rest” with its slow rising saxophone sounds amid geometric guitar and piano motifs. “Good Fortune” shrouds its probing guitar lines with a whistling, shivering hum of electronics, while “A Clock for No Time” let the piano slip up to the front, with rolled arpeggios against a restless, non-linear drumming. McLaughlin’s guitar work is fine and inquisitive, probing the boundaries of the loose structures he finds himself in. The cut is lyrical and full of longing; it seems to breathe and sigh and turn like a restless sleeper.

Whether stormy or calm, however, this is beautiful work, abstract but not inaccessible and worthy of close listening.

Jennifer Kelly

[theories-of]

Closing the night with Charles Rumback and Ryley Walker - Menebhi

[sweetblahg]

sweetblahg 2019 year in review

Daniel Johnston & Tweedy(, the band) - 10.20.2017 @ The Vic

Greg Spero & Blaque Dynamite - 10.2.2018 @ The Whistler

Neil Young - 1.23.2019 @ The Riverside Theater

Tortoise - 2.17.2019 @ The Empty Bottle

Sunwatchers - 4.13.2019 @ Cafe Mustache

Elkhorn + Charles Rumback 4.14.2019 @ Elastic

Papa M - 4.22.2019 @ Rockefeller Memorial Chapel

Ryley Walker - 8.16.2019 @ Hungry Brain

Mute Duo (Quintet) - 8.22.2019 @ The Empty Bottle

One Eleven Heavy - 9.5.2019 @ The Hideout

Bitchin Bajas - 9.12.2019 @ Constellation

Stereolab - 10.4.2019 @ Turner Hall Ballroom

Bill Frisell - 11.14.2019 @ The Art Institute

[mostlymonk]

Eronel

Charles Rumback with Baker & Tate

Jim Baker – piano John Tate – bass Charles Rumback – drums

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

McCombs/MacKay/Rumback - The Constellation, Chicago, Illinois, April 5, 2017

Dudes/dudettes, I reviewed Bill MacKay’s new Esker LP for Aquarium Drunkard this week. I heartily recommend it -- lots of zones to get lost in. After you check it out, check out Joel’s fantastic tape of a recent live jam sesh with MacKay, Douglas McCombs (Brokeback, Tortoise, Eleventh Dream Day) and drummer Charles Rumback. Sparks fly! 

Joel sez: We here at sweetblahg (the royal we, the editorial) are proud to present their new trio’s debut: two 20minute jams. McCombs’s short stabs, low-end riffage and huge swells provide the perfect counterpoint to MacKay’s flowing, pastoral runs and dreamy slide melodies. Rumback’s subtle, ever-shifting percussion leaves both guitarists a ton of space but never falls into a purely supportive role. These three are locked in the first note through the last. 

For more McCombs, dig NYC Taper’s recording of a Brokeback gig from a few weeks back -- and complete the experience by listening to the Mind Over Mirrors set from the same night! Oh yeahhhhh. 

[dustedmagazine]

Black Duck—S-T (Thrill Jockey)

Photo by Evan Jenkins

Black Duck by Black Duck

Chicago is the kind of town where it sometimes seems that everyone has played with everyone else, and indeed within and even across genres including jazz, post-rock, improvised music, folk, blues, electronics and even contemporary classical music, cross pollination proliferates. So it is not exactly surprising to see two Ryley Walker duet partners join forces with a Tortoise founder, who has himself, at times, played with both of them, and in more than one project. Black Duck might be an enduring musical undertaking or a one-off permutation of the Windy City’s considerable talent pool. Either way, it’s a winner.

To be specific, Black Duck is made up of Bill MacKay, Doug McCombs and Charles Rumback, all three of them artists whose work ranges across genres and puts them into contact with each other in a variety of contexts. Just for instance, when I went to see Meg Baird in Chicago last year, Doug McCombs was playing in her band as well as Chris Forsyth’s outfit, and Bill MacKay stood just off stage waiting to be called up by Forsyth. Rumback wasn’t there that night, but you get the idea. Bands are a fluid thing in Chicago.

MacKay’s main instrument is guitar—and his playing ranges from finger-picked folk to raging electric distortion to eerily beautiful slide. McCombs is best known for playing bass in Tortoise, for his multi-instrumental work in Brokeback and for turning up whenever musicians need help finding a groove. Rumback is a drummer with a background in jazz and a strong melodic sense; in his duets with Ryley Walker, he served as an equal partner, driving the song forward as much as the guitarist. In Black Duck, they draw on many different aspects of their respective, eclectic backgrounds, flitting freely from sun-drenched cosmic country, to driving kraut rock, to radiant, enveloping ambiences, all played so expertly that it seems effortless, though it probably isn’t.

Consider, for instance, “Of the Lit Back Yards, the trippy country daydream that kicks off the album, brushes shuffling, bass grumbling, guitar dripping unhurried sweetness. If a roadhouse bar band died and went to heaven, it might sound a lot like this. It has almost nothing in common with the driving blues vamp that powers “Delivery,” bass line licking flames around a motorik beat, and yet the two sit comfortably one track away from one other in the sequencing. What’s between them is even more incongruous, the shivering atmospheres and rolling thunder of “Foothill Daze” (oh, hey, there’s that unearthly slide I was talking about). And yet different as these tracks are, they fit together in a strange surreal way, like the soundtrack to a movie you don’t quite understand, and they are undeniably beautiful.

To my ears, “Lemon Treasure,” near the end, does the best job at bringing all these different elements together. It pulses like a locomotive. It dreams like a lotus eater. It lets notes of soap bubble delicacy bloom alongside rough-riding rhythms. It’s an irresistible groove and an opium vision, and when you think about it, who else could have made this track? These three guys, that’s who. Long live Black Duck.

Jennifer Kelly

[sweetblahg]

Elkhorn + Charles Rumback: Elastic 2019

Elkhorn’s first midwest run! Once again benefiting from Milwaukee Psych Fest runoff, the mighty ‘horn “finally” came through town on a “spring” sunday evening...ok those nonairquotes are dumb, Elkhorn is a relatively new band and it’s hard to tour outside of your geographic area + we had one of those classic springWinterStorms. Neither the snow nor some tv show everyone else likes to watch could keep these dudes from bringing straight heat to Elastic. Elkhorns Drew Gardner & Jesse Sheppard have been expanding their sound lately, adding other guitarists and percussionists as situations call for/allow, shepherding (terrible...sorry, Jesse) the duo from the confines of ‘guitar musics’ into a cosmic zone that feels limitless...all while maintaining the inherent Elkhorn-ness that continues to turn heads into believers. This is evident on their zen’d new doublealbum Elk Jam / Sun Cycle (where the pair are joined by Willie Lane on guitar and Ryan Jewell on percussion) and was inescapable on that snowy sunday when Chicago percussion ace Charles Rumback joined the duo for the first time ever. Most appropriate for this first-time meeting of the minds, only one of these jams has been released - Song of the Son on the aforementioned Sun Cycle. The opening Raga > Distances, while technically two songs, plays as one flowing multi-section suite that I hope gets studio treatment sooner than later. The closing number, Train, is one that they try to play whenever they encounter a capable drummer, and Rumback really shines on it. Dig. Elkhorn + Charles Rumback 4.14.2019 @ Elastic Arts Chicago, IL Raga > Distances Song of the Son Train Jesse Sheppard - 12string acoustic guitar Drew Gardner - electric guitar Charles Rumback - percussion stream download previously on tehBlahg: McCombs/MacKay/Rumback: Constellation 2017

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Black Duck - Black Duck

Black Duck’s Black Duck is a wordless collection of three compositions and five improvisations that indicates the trio would do best to write an album’s worth of material if it decides to record a followup.

The proper songs - guitarist/bassist Douglas McCombs’ wobbly “Of the Lit Backyards,” guitarist Bill MacKay’s gritty “Delivery” and drummer Charles Rumback’s earthy “The Trees are Dancing” - stand on their own and together provide much-needed, melodic context to their on-the-fly counterparts. Those numbers, which consist of varying levels of formlessness from the extended tuning of “Second Guess” to the Black Duck in Grateful Dead “Space” that is “Thunder Fade that Earth Smells,” work only within the contours of the self-titled LP. And even that is a stretch.

As such, the 35 minutes of Black Duck ultimately fall into the category of background music or soundtrack to a bong sesh. Yet “Backyards,” “Delivery” and “Trees” are songs that deserve a spot in the foreground of any music collection.

Grade card: Black Duck - Black Duck - C+

8/14/23