{"id":5186,"date":"2022-10-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-31T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=5186"},"modified":"2022-12-21T10:18:55","modified_gmt":"2022-12-21T16:18:55","slug":"seances-dunn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/seances-dunn\/","title":{"rendered":"Stranger Than Fiction: A Conversation with Trevor Dunn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There is much in this world that we do not understand. Phenomena not easily understood by science or human reason. Unexplained mysteries are impossible to distinguish as either shocking reality or mental delusion. As bassist Trevor Dunn writes in the liner notes to S\u00e9ances<\/em> (Pyroclastic, 2022), his group Trio-Convulsant\u2019s first release since 2004, \u201c[w]e are the worst portrayers of truth as we have no idea what it is. Everyone is a hypocrite. Everyone is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S\u00e9ances <\/em>draws its inspiration from the Convulsionnaires of Saint-M\u00e9dard, a French Catholic sect that still survives in some form today but reached its zenith of prominence in the mid-eighteenth century. The Convulsionnaires claimed its members experienced coprophagia, curative powers, levitation, and milk-vomiting, all allegedly gifts from God. Their detractors claimed they were derived from Satan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how do you convert that story into music, particularly instrumental music? Whatever the answer to that question, Dunn and company seem to have done so expertly. It helps that the musicians in the extended ensemble are outsiders in the pop culture zeitgeist. Each of the core members of the trio – Dunn, guitarist Mary Halvorson, and drummer Ches Smith- are important names in modern avant-garde music. But in a Top 40 world that thinks Katy Perry is \u201chigh art\u201d, this renders them musical heretics. The members of the chamber quartet – violinist Carla Kihlstedt, bass clarinetist Oscar Noriega, cellist Mariel Roberts, and flutist Anna Webber- are similarly revolutionary. The album is utterly distinct, defying even customs of avant-garde-based improvisation; if there are any. Hues of metal – music regularly accused of dabbling in some dark magic- and chamber music – derivative of the esteemed \u201cclassical\u201d music form but intended for hushed and private performances, hidden from the public writ large. While \u201c Saint-M\u00e9dard\u201d throws in some country blues for good measure. \u201cEschatology\u201d lives in the shadow of bop, as if some rendition of Charlie Parker\u2019s \u201cOrnithology\u201d from another, darker, dimension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision to add a chamber quartet, fittingly named \u201cFolie \u00e0 Quatre\u201d or \u201cMadness for Four\u201d, was a sage one as it adds a new quality to the music. At times the thundering fury of bass and drum and Halvorson\u2019s bent and distorted guitar are met by elegant strings and winds, perhaps opposed to the trio\u2019s activities. At others, the quartet joins in the insanity, even egging the trio to go further. This is most evident in \u201c1733\u201d, a song title representing the year the French government drove the Convulsionnaires underground. In the process, the expanded trio seemingly engages in its own mysterious behaviors- artistic telepathy in a group that has not recorded together for almost two decades and more than doubled its size in the interim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our conversation with Dunn, we discuss what brought about S\u00e9ances<\/em>, the defiance of conventions, whether our world is a hologram, surrealism, the human subconscious, medical miracles, society\u2019s responses to plagues, and free will. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PostGenre: S\u00e9ances <\/em>borrows ideas from jazz, metal, chamber music, and more. In this sense, the album is compatible with your other works as you are often unconstrained by stylistic or genre norms. What are your thoughts on genre?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trevor Dunn: Well, I don’t think about it that much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I\u2019m writing a piece for Trio-Convulsant, I want something that sounds heavier. I use power chords like a rock band. When I originally conceived of Trio-Convulsant years ago, I wanted it to be a jazz trio where I’m composing a lot of counterpoints but one that is also heavy like a rock band. The idea was to both make jazz a little heavier and make heavy rock a little more harmonically complex. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don’t necessarily sit down and work to make sure a  song crosses genres. It’s all just a part of the palette that I have available. When I’m writing, I just know that all kinds of different musical ideas are available to me. Every part I use is just part of the writing process.  Another color to add out of everything. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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