Elijah McLaughlin & Caleb Willitz

Elijah McLaughlin’s no stranger to the site. HIs works under the Elijah McLaughlin ensemble have been cropping up here for some time, but on his latest collaboration with Caleb Willitz, the Chicago guitarist pushes well past the boundaries of those works. The pair set up for an extended run in Willitz’ studio, removing the boundaries and roadblocks of time and tenure in recording sessions. There they sketched out improvisations that found Caleb on piano and Elijah at the guitar, wielding an echo pedal like a third member. Eventually these sessions were whittled into the bones of the album, overdubs and edits hammering them into new shapes.

Those shapes also left intentional loose threads, cutouts, and crevices that they felt could be filled and refined by some friends and collaborators. Edward Wilkerson Jr., Josh Johannpeter, Charles Rumback, and Jason Stein add to the album’s hand-carved grace. These collaborators, all Chicago improv vets themselves, ably begin to etch their own intricacies on the works that McLaughlin and Willitz had shaped during their studio sit-in. The record becomes a living document, a festering, flowering organism that’s as much indebted to Chicago’s post-rock legacies as it is to the ebb and flow of free jazz fumes. It’s some of the most immediate work I’ve heard from both artists and the kind of record that changes shades over time, catching different hues with each listen. Exciting things as always over at Centripetal Force, one of the best labels going these days.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.