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Immaculate Restraint
by Cripsy Duck 10-3-00
(printed in C-VILLE Vol.12, No.41)
LAKE TROUT'S ALONE AT LAST
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Exactly one year ago this month, I was standing in the back of Trax with a local badass-- a veteran guitarist of noteworthy historic intensity-- in absolute unabashed awe. We were witnessing the furtherance of the spectacle known as Lake Trout, and we were both dumbfounded. "What amazes me is their restraint," he insisted. "I could play this music, but I could never hold back like this. I'd have to solo-- and that would ruin everything." Exactly! Immaculate restraint is part of what makes the techno-inspired, Baltimore-based Lake Trout such an impressive thing to behold. They're definitely a musically disciplined crew, but, with the possible exception of Michael Lowry-- their super-powered, ultra fast, dance-beat-spewing drummer (a blue ribbon and a gold star for that dude)-- there are no hotdogs in the band. Even if somebody was so inclined, their spacious music wouldn't really allow the unneccessary pockets of egotistical excess. The Lake Trout formula is more like: "hit it and stick it"-- come up with a simple, complimentary phrase on your instrument, drop it in at the right moment, and repeat it until the feel of the piece changes, then drop out and change up. They improvise huge trance-inducing spaces in this fashion, and it's incredible.
Lake Trout isn't like any other band I've ever seen. They are an instrumentally organic distillation of a deep, sophisticated fusion jam, a seminar on meditation, and a tripping raver's paradise and the live result is frequently mind-blowing, always compelling and definitely epic. They've been an object of some national attention of late, having been booked into shows with legendary heavies John Scofield and Maceo Parker, toured Japan, and even represented the Knitting Factory for three nights in Rome. So when I heard that on Dec. 9, 1999, they were planning to record a live CD at Charlottesville's own Trax nightclub, I was both stunned and excited. I was also there. The record thus produced, Alone at Last (Pheonix Presents), with contributions from DJ Who, is a fine representation of what the band is capable of in a live setting. Previously composed songs segue seamlessly into impromptu jams (left untitled on the CD, so you know what's what), and the whole thing comes off like some strangely beautiful Amsterdam cafe opium dream. (On a side note: I personally thought that the previous October's Trax show had a little more audacius intensity-- and a larger crowd to boot-- but alas, no expensive digital recording rig that night, just a few tapers.)The group's serene dedication to long, shifting soundscapes rolling through neighborhoods of dubbed in samples and turntable odditites with horns and flutes and keyboards and guitars that riff unendingly, providing simple graceful harmonies or occasionally slicing dreamily through the jam while basses hum and roar for internal infinities, compelled by a phenomenon of a drummer who does not quit until the dancers stop to spit (watching people trying to dance to this guy is a hilarious experience in and of itself), makes for a very "otherworldly" auditory environment. Experiencing the band dutifully laying this stuff out live-in-house on real instruments with their new-world-religion-sort-of vibe and all of its nobly eerie trappings in full force, I believed something very deep had finally found my ass in Trax. Something very intense indeed. |
