Natural Information Society - Since Time Is Gravity CD

A sprawling collective of Chicago-based players led by Joshua Abrams (whose discography features a range of store favourite names: Grubbs, Loren Connors, Joe McPhee, Bonnie Prince Billy, Rhys Chatham, etc.), Natural Information Society wind together equally sprawling traditions of minimalism, free and spiritual jazz, and (for lack of a better term) world musics.

If those genres sound a little bit “challenging” there seems to be something for everyone on this record. In many ways, it’s a kind of age-old jazz band arrangement: a collective backing that ebbs and flows through a piece while various soloists take their turn weaving through, occasionally breaching a skronk but never really tipping over the edge. But it’s not trad by any means.

Where the record really hits though are in the passages without soloists, where the meditative drones and patterned polyrhythms really take shape, at once evoking Reich’s drumming, Young & Zazeela’s drones, and Gamelan.

One for fans of everyone from Alice Coltrane to Nana Sinephro to 75 Dollar Bill or a Don Cherry.
-Mitch