Somewhat unexpectedly, Sean Ono Lennon has teamed up with Deerhoof’s amazing drummer, Greg Saunier, forming an improvised music duo called Mystical Weapons. Their self-titled debut LP is out Jan. 15 on Lennon’s Chimera Music, but you can stream it here until Jan. 18.
ListenMystical Weapons by Mystical Weapons
Streaming until Jan. 18
Lennon has had a long day. He got up early to shoot footage for his
directorial debut, a documentary about some visual/performance artist
friends of his who live in New York City.
“It’s a nascent project so I’m not going to talk too much about it,”
Lennon says over the phone. “It’s been a year of shooting and I probably
have another year left. It’s a long project. I like to try different
things all at once.”
Indeed, on Jan. 15, Lennon is actually releasing two records, each of
which are completely distinct and unlike any of the pop music he’s
released before. Lennon composed the soaring soundtrack to Alter Egos, a film about superheroes (which he has a small role in) that warranted some Tim Burton-Batman-era symphonic compositions.
Then there’s Mystical Weapons, an improv duo that came about after
Lennon became friendly with Deerhoof’s Saunier, and Cibo Matto’s Yuka
Honda suggested the two try playing together. The resulting album is a
really cool, eclectic, loosely powerful collection of experiments with
some basic structure.
“All the music is improvised, which is one of the guidelines,” Lennon
explains. “Then there would be verbal guidelines, which were sometimes
based around instrumentation or a key signature or a concept or mood.”
“A song like ‘Dirty Neon’ was as simple as saying, ‘All right Greg,
you play piano this time and I’ll play drums,’” Lennon continues. "And
then ‘Mechanical Mammoth’ was all about playing the ARP 2600 on an
atonal setting so the intervals on the keys weren’t 12-tone but kinda
random. Some songs were about just using the kalimba and the last song,
‘Consortium Musicum,’ was about playing toys live. I’m really proud of
that one because it’s very atmospheric, even though it’s just us sitting
cross-legged, playing toys.”
For someone whose family name is connected to the greatest pop songs
in history, and whose own discography reflects an interest in
verse-chorus-verse songwriting, Mystical Weapons is a welcome
exploration.
“It’s really liberating because I do tend to do more structured
music,” Lennon admits. “Greg is the perfect partner in crime when it
comes to improvising because he has a really great spontaneity and is
very original so he’s not just blurting out clichés like most of us
are.”
Sean Lennon had much more to say about his own music and
unexpectedly playing songs by his parents, John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Lennon, with the likes of Aerosmith, Mavis Staples and Wilco's Jeff
Tweedy over the last year.
IMTo hear the full conversation, you can download an MP3 if you right-click this highlighted text and “Save target as.” Or to stream it, press play.
No comments:
Post a Comment