Basher – Mayday (Vinyl LP)

Basher, New Orleans’ premiere free jazz party band is back! May Day is the much-anticipated follow-up to 2022’s Doubles, and where that album was an experiment in instrumentation and the blurred line between free improvisation and art rock dance fusion whatever jazz, the new release is proof positive that the concept works, and dance music and art music can happily co-exist.

The music here flows much the same as their electrifying live shows – dance-oriented bops with expansive improvisational sections sewn together by completely free improvisation. When Basher performs, there is cathartic joy in the songs and a dissonant turmoil in the open improvisations. There is also an inherent risk at play — anything can happen within and outside the compositions, and nobody in the room knows how it’s going to go down this time around. This is much how this album was recorded, tracking several songs in succession without stopping, allowing the band to enter a flow state, worrying far more about the music made than the execution of the songs. Working with producer Jeff Albert (the same as on Doubles), Asher then crafted the long takes into the music heard here.

The musicians featured on May Day are the same as on Doubles, and as the band has toured and performed in celebration of their last record, the connections have deepened. Drummers Brad Webb (Extended) and Zach Rhea have hit their stride in their shared percussive role while Daniel Meinecke has expanded his role as synthesist, adding modular synth to his Moog and Prophet rig. And saxophonists Aurora Nealand (Tim Berne, John Hollenbeck) and Asher have developed a sort of hive mind, at times acting as one saxophone and at times living in total creative independence from each other to great effect.

On Doubles, Basher poses the question “what might a band called Basher sound like?” On May Day, they answer that question. This is what Basher sounds like.