MasTicA: Hypes

On '99, local warehouse pop trio Mastica offers up an inviting selection of uniquely phrased, definitely not-Top 40 original music. The Austin three-piece is Gum B. on bass, cello, mandocello, and vox; Monkey on bontempi, guitar, reeds, and vox; and Pat Mastelotto on drums and knobs. If you haven't heard of the Gum B./Monkey husband-wife team, chances are you've heard Mastelotto's drums, either with King Crimson, or in one of his many hired-gun sessions with everyone from Patti LaBelle to XTC. Mastica's debut benefits from three things: cool songs, intrepid experimentation on atypical instruments, and a Tom Waits-like ruff sonic patina, like "Crescent Moon," which has a Morphinesque ride that ends with an impromptu implosion. In spite of pockets of overused melodies, Gum and Monkey's singing delivers David Sylvian introspection and Veruca Salt extroversion. As expected, Mastelotto is prominent, as on the attractive mess that is "Mu?s de Pato," where the skinbeater uses an orchestra of compressed drums like the mammoth tom tracks of Peter Gabriel's first solo albums. "Prison" finds a clarinet, snappy snare, and bass ostinato melting with sampled audio quotes taken from Texas folklorist Alan Lomax's famous 1947 recordings of Mississippi prison songs and sayings. Superior to Moby's tinkering in the same direction, the song's amazing snippets are then manipulated beyond recognition, like a prisoner's emotional state. The song, like '99 itself, is both thought-provoking and engaging.

"99:
Featuring King Crimson's Pat Mastelotto on drums and production, Mastica 99' is one of the most distinctive extra-curricular projects to emerge from the Crimso universe.

MasTicAttacK: 5 stars!
Take a rather hallucinatory, VERY creative trip through heavy experimental electronic insanity, one part David Lynch type reality distortion, one part weird jazz, one part anything-goes open minded approach, space noises, a bit of world beat and, well, just make sure you've taken your medication as this will have you second guessing yourself... and I mean that in a GOOD way.

The combined pedigrees of these musicians might lead you to
expect something deeply weird, and you'd be right. But it's
all weird in the best way: challenging and unpredictable,
and yet never willfully difficult.
...drumming combines textural invention with... ...various reed instruments alternately twine through the mix and create layers of atmosphere within each arrangement.
...gutbucket bass takes front and center, and at other times his cello will suddenly become clearly audible in the mix.
Highlight tracks include the complex and lovely 'Crescent Moon' and 'Prison', which is built around samples from an old Alan Lomax field recording. Highly recommended.

Born from the talents that has propelled bands like King Crimson, Poi Dog Pondering and Mr. Mister comes Mastica, an Austin, Texas-based trio. This eclectic threesome consists of bassist, vocalist and cello player gumB. (who's previously worked with Poi Dog Pondering, Alejandro Escovedo and "the original god of hellfire" Arthur Brown), guitarist, clarinetist, vocalist and sax player munkE, along with percussionist Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson, Mr. Mister, Michael Penn and David Sylvian). Miles from the mainstream, the music on their debut album "99" (actually released in 2000) proves to be a quirky, avant garde rock cocktail that becomes an intoxicating, mind-altering experience.
From the tranquilized "4 a.m.," to the infectious number "Queen," complete with Mastelotto's pounding tribal percussions and munkE�s oddly welcome clarinet, gumB delivers his cool, sensual vocals in a style that falls somewhere between Bryan Ferry and David Sylvian. The dizzying cello that gumB weaves in and out of the modern primitive rhythms on the psychedelic, spanish-flavored "Munecos de Palo" make for a legal hallucinogenic. On "Prison," they've sampled the longing angst of a prisoner, from a 1947 Alan Lomax recording, alongside a deep groove in a similar Eno-meets-Moby fashion.
munkE adds her seductive jazz-tinged saxophone to the moody "Crescent Moon," while her lush vocals float ethereally above the mix on "Seven Marys." Her vocals also add a rare normality on the beautiful "Day Older," a song that comes the closest to latter-day alt-rock. Mastelotto's richly textured percussions help keep the music from straying too far to the left. He provides the glue necessary to keep things in order, but then also acts as a blank canvas for "outside" melodies and exploring instrumentations to attach themselves to. Not fitting neatly into any music category, Mastica's avant garde approach could be just the creative shot-in-the-arm that rock music needs right now.

3 1/2 stars (out of 5 stars)

"weird their first cd was a weird mixture of stlyes reminding of captain beefheart. Their second cd is even weirder mixing with more jazz improvisations"

June 22, 2001:
Mastica
Empanada Parlour, June 13
Three's a good number for Mastica: The local outfit has three founding members; their set featured three guest musicians, they occupied one of Empanada Parlour's three stages; and during their 12-song, 90-minute set, it seemed like each member played three instruments. "Where are those chewy people?," asked the group's bassist/singer Gum B., while cracking wise about the group's name, which is based on the ancient Greek word for chewing. This, after the former Stickpeople bassist nearly silenced the modest but loquacious crowd with his electro-cello, generating a melancholic phrase, sampling it, looping it, and ultimately adding two and sometimes three lines via more sampling/looping. Nice opener. The rest of the band, MunKey (vox, guitar, alto sax), Branden Harper (drums), Bruce Salmon (samples, keyboards), and Brad Houser (reeds, bass, percussion) took the stage afterwards, kicking off with the swampy bass/ drum intro of "You," from the group's diamond-in-the-rough debut '99. Houser, Salmon, and Harper joined the wife-husband MunKey/Gum B. team in part to substitute for founding Mastica percussionist (and King Crimson skin beater) Pat Mastelotto. The Sixth Street Parlor's two indoor/one outdoor stage setup permits different vibes for different needs. Yet only one door, often left open, separates two simultaneous acts -- as on this night when Mastica's outdoor set was occasionally confused by the able jazz combo playing the cave-like downstairs stage. Mastica didn't mind, launching into a tune from their to-be-released second album, its lurching rhythm splashed with Salmon's sampled and manipulated laughing, MunKey's sax squawks, and Gum B.'s mortality-themed lyrics. Later MunKey took lead vox for '99's "Seven Marys," Houser augmenting the cut by playing large North African iron castanets across drum rhythms provided by Harper, who filled in well for Mastelotto. A few selections later came a syncopated rendition of Daniel Johnston's "Never," then more new and '99 gems, including "7-teen" and closer "Idiot." Mastica's songs are accessible and weird, composed and improved, and in spite of some self-indulgent meandering, the musicianship was first class, even if the set's execution came off a bit disorganized; with members working on other projects (New Bohemians, Alejandro Escovedo, Critters Buggin'), finding rehearsal time must be a bitch. While three has been their magic number, here's hoping locals don't have to wait until LP No. 3 to hear on more Mastica. Chew on, you crazy diamonds.

Fans of KING CRIMSON may be interested in a second Burning Shed release by a band called MASTICA. This trio features sometime Crimson drummer PAT MASTELOTTO (whose credits also include the very un-prog REMBRANDTS, MR MISTER and COCK ROBIN!) plus husband and wife team gumB and munkE (yes, honestly!). Mastica is a fine example of some of the edgy indie rock around in the US at the moment, but prog fans should find it a rewarding listen.

MasTicAttacK: reviews from CD BABY website
all 4 stars

Thank you for taking me somewhere I haven't been!

Just from the samples I heard, I was exposed to some sounds that I don't come across every day. This CD is a good example of what's lacking in commercial radio. Keep up the cutting-edge work!

bigbeartheory


Juggled textures and side-swipin' musical mayhem!

Sometimes you just drive without a seatbelt. Here's a great CD that's like a demolition derby. Motifs zoom out of the blue, land in a rotary of rhythmic changes, and then fly down a sideroad into wild improvisation. I'm thoroughly challenged and enchanted by their antics. Having just seen King Crimson live, with the talents of Pat Mastoletto in full dynamic display, makes this listening experience even more entertaining.
�
Mr. Curt


Great CD, great shop.

The CD is great (hear to the samples here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/mastica1). The shop (CD Baby) is also great - good price, cheap international shipping price, fast shipping. Many thanks.

Pavel Borodin

Have you never asked yourselves as would play a disc like Septober Energy of Centipede if written and played today? Perhaps not even Pat Mastelotto has asked it to himself when he has assembled this trio, devoted to a sound clearly percussive but from which are often emerging elements that seem closely related with atmospheres created by the supergroup of fifty elements lead by Keith Tippett. This is not a constant of the album, obviously: the mentioned similarities are to be found in pieces as Crescent Moon and You, while elsewhere the sound is more linked to the new American sound languages (in way fortunately diluted, as the undersigned has never been a fan of celebrated scenes as the Seattle one, and I do not refer to the Guitar Circle, preferring the most radical New York based as John Zorn or Arto Lindsay). Pieces as Queen and Hush can quite make happy fans of bands like Can and the most recent Orang, while inks of black jazz are painting Prison, track centralized on old songs of the Mississippi jails. The more accessible King Crimson and The League Of Gentlemen are recognisable in Day Older, piece with a regular rhythm in which a Frippish guitar synth produces himself in a pair of short solos. To be sincere I would have preferred a more direct proposal by Mastica, as it has been some year ago in the wonderful album by Prometheus, the Steve Ball band in which Mastelotto was involved, but the nearly seventy minutes of this ‘99 surely are not wasted. In waiting of the new album for which the group has already begun to compose material, I suggest to connect to the official website of the group (http://www.mastica.net) in order to download the mp3 file of Sacrificador, a good outtake from the ’99 sessions which remained excluded from the album for a disadvantage happened in phase of working.

and the original in Italian....

Vi siete mai chiesti come suonerebbe un disco come Septober Energy dei Centipede se scritto e suonato ai giorni nostri? Forse non se lo ?hiesto nemmeno Pat Mastelotto quando ha assemblato questo trio, fautore di un sound marcatamente percussivo ma da cui spesso traspaiono elementi che sembrano strettamente imparentati con le atmosfere create dal supergruppo di cinquanta elementi guidato da Keith Tippett. Questa non ?na costante dell’album, ovviamente : le citate similitudini sono rintracciabili in pezzi come Crescent Moon e You, mentre altrove il sound ?i?gato ai nuovi linguaggi sonori americani (fortunatamente in maniera diluita, in quanto il sottoscritto non ?ai stato un estimatore di scene tanto decantate come quella di Seattle, e non mi riferisco al Guitar Circle, preferendo semmai i pi?dicali newyorkesi come John Zorn o l’oriundo Arto Lindsay). Pezzi come Queen e Hush possono addirittura far felici i fans di gruppi come i Can o i pi?centi Orang, mentre tinte di jazz “nero” colorano Prison, pezzo incentrato su vecchi canti delle carceri del Mississippi. I King Crimson pi?ccessibili" e la League Of Gentlemen fanno capolino in Day Older, pezzo dalla ritmica molto regolare in cui un guitar sinth quasi Frippiano si produce in un paio di brevi solos. Ad essere sincero avrei preferito che la proposta di Mastica fosse un po’ pi?iretta” come lo fu in passato l’entusiasmante album omonimo dei Prometheus, il gruppo di Steve Ball che vide coinvolto lo stesso Mastelotto, ma i quasi settanta minuti di questo ’99 non sono certo da disprezzare, anzi. In attesa del nuovo album per cui il gruppo ha gi?niziato a comporre materiale, ai completisti consiglio di collegarsi al sito ufficiale del gruppo (http://www.mastica.net) per scaricare il file mp3 di Sacrificador, un buon pezzo appartenente alle sessions di ’99 rimasto escluso dall’album per un inconveniente avvenuto in fase di lavorazione.

MasTicAttacK:
A stunning collection of improvs from Mastica, featuring King Crimson's Pat Mastelotto on drums and production. A brutally different but wholly worthy follow-up to the groundbreaking Mastica ‘99.