Restroy

Restroy - Restroy - (1980 Records)

Once again Chicago comes through. Restroy is Christopher Danmann bassist and composer and his collaborators James Davis, (Trumpet), Kevin Davis, (cello,) Paul Giallorenzo (synth, electronics), Mabel Kwan, (piano, keyboards), and one of the deans of the creative music scene in Chicago, drummer Avreeayl Ra who played with Sun Ra, Ernest Dawkins, Fred Anderson, and Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble. Integral to the sound of this release are the electronic effects achieved by using ring modulation.

"A ring modulator multiplies two signals together to create two brand-new frequencies which are the sum and difference of the input frequencies."

The totality of their sound is not as you might suspect, mechanical, cold, or alienating. It is pulsating, vibrant, profoundly organic in texture. That's Danmann's signature, brown propulsive rhythm as a ground, allowing for other instruments, (notably trumpet and keyboards) to swell and ebb. Ra's drumming is bifurcated between irresistible driving figures and commentary that subliminally interjects. This is music so personal and intimate that any attempt to classify it by genre misses the point entirely. Please check it out for yourself: Restroy S/T, by Milk Factory Productions - Hobart Taylor

Chicago and jazz have always had a strong relationship with one another. That bond will only be strengthened by the release of Restroy’s self-titled album, out tomorrow May 16th via 1980 Records!

The group is led by bass player & composer Chris Dammann but features an impressive number of influential Chicago jazz musicians including Avreeayl Ra, who has performed with Sun Ra Arkestra, Fontella Bass, Pharoah Sanders, & many more.

The instrumental album is a mix of improvisational tracks and more formal compositions. Tracks like “A Line And A Point” and “Close” don’t stray too far from that “classic jazz sound” until the introduction of synthesizers and modulation create a wall of electronic noise engulfing the other instruments.

Then there are songs like “Apart” & “Grids”—with driving synth lines and distorted cello solos these songs begin to share more similarities to the noise-rock world than the jazz-world. Imagine Sonic Youth meets Sun Ra but without a single guitar and you’ll start to get the idea.

Drummer Avreeayl Ra, soon to be recognized with an award from the Elastic Arts Foundation, is a legend in the Chicago jazz scene. His drumming on Restroy anchors the band and adds a backbone to the chaotic mix of instrumentation going on around him.

Restroy may not be for every jazz fan out there, but it’s sure to resonate with fans of the avant-garde who prefer jazz that pushes the envelope. The 7 tracks that make up Restroy meander and evolve as they go creating an album that is both rooted in the past but looking towards the future. These songs sit at the intersection of improvised experimentation and contemporary American jazz, blending the two in a way that is undeniably cool. - https://midwestaxn.com

The increased presence of jazz in this column lately might lead some to think I am getting old — and you wouldn’t be wrong! But honestly, if you love a wide variety of music, you probably should be paying attention to jazz, and not just dusty old records you find in thrift stores, either! (Not that those aren’t often really good, but still.) New and intriguing things have been happening in the local jazz world recently, and Black Iris has been taking a big role in helping the word get out — which is an awesome and welcome contribution to the local scene, so keep it up, y’all!

This week, Black Iris is bringing us a performance from Restroy, a shifting ensemble led by Virginia bassist Christopher Dammann, which integrates acoustic jazz improvisation with electronic textures and experimental noise to create a surprising new hybrid which still beats with the unkillable heart of jazz tradition. Restroy for this performance finds Dammann teaming up with drummer extraordinaire Scott Clark — who we told you about in last week’s jazz-at-Black-Iris coverage — and a quartet of electronic musicians who will also add textures of piano, trumpet, and cello to the mix. The result will be hard to predict, tough to pin down, and impossible to forget. The evening will begin with a performance by mysterious local electronic combo The Voice Of Saturn, and will only get more intriguing from there. Don’t miss it. - RVA Magazine

RESTROY With CHRISTOPHER DAMMANN / James Davis/ Kevin William Davis / Paul Giallorenzo /Mabel Kwan / Avreeayl Ra- Restroy (1980 Records; USA)
Restroy is James Davis on trumpet & ring modulator, Paul Giallorenzo & Mabel Kwan on keyboards & synth, Christopher Damman on bass & compositions and Avreeayl Ra on drums. A couple of years back, we received two disc in the mail from a couple discs from two related Chicago ensembles, Restroy & the 3, 5, 7 Ensemble. Both were pretty great, although I hadn’t heard of any of the musicians involved beforehand. For this, the second disc from Restroy, the personnel has changed a bit and now includes a couple of more known Chicago musicians: Paul Giallorenzo (with Guillermo Gregorio & a current trio with Jason Stein & Frank Rosaly) and drummer Avreeayl Ra (Ernest dawkins & Nicole Mitchell). Bassist Christopher Dammann wrote 4 of the 7 pieces here, the others appear to be group improvs. “A Line and a Point” begins with a web of strummed bass strings, somber trumpet, eerie organ and simmering percussion. “Close” is laid back and hypnotic, with inspired slow-burning trumpet quietly bathed in effects and a swirling, churning rhythm team providing the constant cushion. “Many Exiles” sounds as if the ensemble were playing in slow motion, giving the vibe a dream-like haze. Mr. Dammann’s contrabass is at the center of most of these pieces, tapping and plucking the strings like they were a part of an ancient ceremony or ritual. He is a most gifted bassist who deserves to be heard elsewhere. Since the trumpet is the lead instrument here, both keyboards are used in interlocking layers, rather sequencer-like in sound with a couple of quietly brain-melting synth solos. On “Grids”, the piano plays a repeating, hypnotic line in the distance while the electronic keyboard/synth add swirls lines on top with Jon Hassell-like or Miles-muted echoed trumpet also floating above the somber storm. The overall effect is one of a churning haze washing over all of us listening. Another raft of hope floating from the Chicago underground scene. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG - Downtown Music Gallery

It’s more than a push of a button when Restroy’s Chris Damman sends a wave of electricity through his carefully composed cello numbers. Despite using electronic drones and noise, the acoustic instrument is the foundation of sound for Damman, who is so physically in tune with his cello that it’s actually changed his posture. On its new self-titled release, Restroy combines grunge, electronic, classical and mbira music into avant-garde compositions. The CD release party also features special guests Tavishi and Christina Carlotti Kolb. - C-ville Weekly

When Chris Dammann was a kid growing up in Charlottesville, he spent a lot of time looking at his dad’s upright bass. “I wonder what that does, to be in that corner,” Dammann recalls thinking about the instrument. He decided to find out for himself at age 14, when he took the bass out of the corner and started plucking its fat strings. He never put it back.

Dammann, now 32, has spent a lot of time with that bass. He played it all through high school, improvising and taking lessons from Charlottesville Symphony principal bassist and UVA music faculty member Pete Spaar. He played it all through music school at Northwestern University and in regular sessions at the Velvet Lounge in Chicago. He’s carted it across the region in a station wagon (it’s too big for airplanes) and played it on the road with Mexo-Americana group David Wax Museum and the jazzy 3.5.7 Ensemble.

He’s spent so much time with the instrument that it’s even affected him physically. Hunching over the bass’s belly has changed how he stands, the orientation of his hips and his posture. “There’s nothing sensible about the upright bass,” Dammann says with a laugh, “but that’s part of its charm.”

He’ll bring that bass—and some of the music he’s composed on it—to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church-Unitarian Universalist on Wednesday evening, to play with his avant-garde group Restroy, combining elements of jazz, mbira, electronic, noise, classical and grunge music into a singular, experimental sound that’ll compel you to stop what you’re doing, listen and ask, “What is that?”

Dammann composes because he needs to. Usually, his music begins with the act of listening to his record collection—Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Charles Mingus, Pauline Oliveros—to “exhaust the possibilities” of whatever he’s listening to. When he can no longer find what he’s looking for in those records in that moment, he’ll create what he needs to hear.

“Whenever I play, I imagine I’m sitting in the audience and try and play exactly what I would like to hear as a listener,” says Dammann. “I’m always looking for something physical and visceral—things that quicken the heart and make me want to dance.” As for what specific feelings he’s looking to evoke with Restroy’s music, Dammann says wryly that information is “top secret.”

SaturnReturn_RestroyDammann composes most of the music for Restroy and plays bass and electronics in the group that also features Cathy Monnes on cello, James Davis on trumpet, Kevin Davis on violin, Tobin Summerfield on guitar, Nick Anaya on saxophone, Mabel Kwan on piano and John Niekrasz on drums. Dammann likes to give Restroy musicians something challenging to play, just enough information to know what’s going on, but not so much that they can get away with not listening. “Listening is the most important part of it for me,” says Dammann. “I think of a musician as just a highly skilled, highly attuned listener.”

On tracks such as “Chris&CathyBFFS4 EvahEver,” off of Restroy’s 2016 release, Saturn Return, Dammann ponders texture to give form to music for improvisation. On another track, “Dangu Rangu,” he’s arranged a traditional mbira piece that isn’t necessarily an authentic representation of the music that originated in Zimbabwe, but rather an exploration of what he finds fascinating about it: “The long lines, the feel of pulse without meter. There is meter…but all the cross-rhythms obscure it to my ear until it just sounds like four on the floor, pulse,” he says, adding that he’s captivated by “how spontaneously musical it sounds.”

Dammann knows there’s probably not a huge audience for this highly experimental sound, and he’s okay with that. But for the audience he does have, he encourages close listening.

Music is everywhere—murmuring under the hubbub of voices in a coffee shop, blaring from the car ahead of you at a stoplight and in your earbuds as you answer emails. It’s on the stereo while you cook dinner and in the movies and TV shows you watch. We’re always listening, but we’re listening in addition to doing something else—listening is rarely an act of its own.

If you let music pour into your ears and seep into your brain, your heart, your blood, you can absorb it to the point where it becomes a part of you and you’ll feel ownership over the sound. Even if you didn’t write it, you might feel like you did—that’s how involved Dammann wants you to get with this music.

“Sometimes, when you go see music, it’s like you the listener are making it happen in some magical way, and I’m always looking for that. When you’re the performer, you can engage directly with that, and if it’s subtle enough, it brings everyone into the process. …Listening is a sacred thing.” - Erin O'hare

RESTROY - Saturn Return (Milk Factory 009; USA) Restroy features: Nick Anaya on tenor sax, James Davis on trumpet, Gina Sobel on flute, Catherine Monnes on violin & cello, Tim Spine on guitar, Chris Damman on bass, Loren Oppenheimer & Matt Wyatt on percussion, tabla & electronics and Daniel Richardson & Dylan Andrews on drums. All of the pieces on this disc except one were written by the bassist Chris Damman. Four of the ten musicians (tenor, trumpet, strings & bass) play on every piece, while the rest switch off. “Twenty-Seven” opens and has a lovely, laid back vibe with sublime tenor sax simmering throughout. I dig the way the ensemble spins on “Uma”, calm yet quick with rich harmonies for the tenor sax and trumpet. The rhythm section, Dammann on bass & Dylan Andrews on drums are what makes this unit special as they work together perfectly. Towards the end, the drums are doubled up with a tabla player (Loren Oppenheimer) who also fits just right. Mr. Damman does a great job of adding several inter-connected layers which move tightly around another. On “S.M.I.B.O.”, a number of tight swirling lines continuous spin: sax, flute, trumpet, strings, guitar all soar around one another while the rhythm team expands and contracts in sections. Saxist Nick Anaya has a great, soulful, warm tone without ever screaming. There are songs which sound like normal jazz on the surface, with the tenor sax and trumpet up front, while the other players: guitar or flute or strings are inserted in between the frontline horns like subtle sonic spice spice or punctuation. The music here is often modest and never pushes too hard at unnecessary showing off. It is consistently inventive but never erupts too much. The ever-growing Chicago underground creative music scene is well documented by the Milk Factory label. Time to check other discs on this label. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG

Tuesday evening at the Whistler, local label Milk Factory Productions showcases two of its key projects: the 3.5.7 Ensemble (led by saxophonist Nick Anaya) and Restroy (led by bassist Chris Dammann). I wrote about the former in late 2014, but Dammann's band doesn't play often—this is just its second Chicago gig since the release of last year's Saturn Return. Dammann jokingly told me, "The first concert was top secret due to my lack of promotion for it."

The combo plays refined postbop arrangements of the leader's compositions, given depth by the plush-toned trumpet of James Davis, the full-bodied tenor saxophone of Anaya, and the bracing violin and cello of Catherine Monnes. Here and there guitarist Tim Stine and flutist Gina Sobel add extra front-line counterpoint, but the primary wrinkle in Restroy's music is rhythmic—the record features four percussionists. Daniel Richardson and Dylan Andrews alternate on drum kit, Loren Oppenheimer adds tabla and frame drum on four tracks, and Matt Wyatt contributes sample-based electronics and percussion to another three.

As you can hear below on "Uma," the extra percussion gives the ensemble a nice jolt of propulsion and texture without smothering the horns. For Tuesday's gig Restroy will consist of Dammann, Monnes, and drummer John Niekrasz. - Peter Margasak

An explosion of understanding careens out of “S.M.I.B.D.,” a track off Restroy’s “Saturn Return.”

It’s composer Chris Dammann convincing his perceptions of music to carouse with the world around him. The booming assuredness of recorded sound echoes down through each of the disc’s eight cuts and extends into Dammann’s daily life as he divvies up existence between time in Charlottesville, in Chicago and stints on the road as bassist in David Wax Museum.

Sure, his sojourns to that aging Midwest behemoth include him roughing it on the floor of some friend’s apartment, eschewing a proper bed. But it’s in service of finding ways to play as much as he can in a fertile and relentlessly creative scene.

When he’s not on the road, though, Dammann said he usually carves out at least four hours to play each day. Sometimes he gambols around Bach compositions. And sometimes he ticks off items on a checklist, so there’s some sort of structure to his exercises. However he’s managed to arrange it all, though, the process seems to have imbued him with the ability to perform in a range of groups, each with its own musical imperative.

“I didn’t really study any music until I went to Northwestern [University],” Dammann, who left the institution with a jazz studies degree, said. “I was a bad classical musician for those years.”

So, Chopin might not be a part of Saturday’s setlist. But Restroy and the 3.5.7 Ensemble — founded eight years back with Dammann’s assistance — service a disparate part of the bassist’s urgent need to play. He just doesn’t want to get down on “Stella by Starlight.”

“I feel like I don’t do it well. But I’m interested in the architecture of that kind of music,” Dammann said about taking a wide berth with standards. “It seems silly for me to put that forward as an artist because I don’t feel like I’m doing much with it.”
Working within the confines of someone else’s composition can have stultifying effects. And even if Dammann perceives the inherent poetry in all the bop stuff that still in some ways defines the genre, it doesn’t mean he wants or needs to speak that particular language.

His own compositions seem unhurried, gently tamped down by the past, as well as a desire to expand on the form. It’s a sound he’d call “authentic,” an unfettered dispatch from inside the mind of a composer working to sort out the world around him through song. And on Restroy’s “Saturn Return,” the troupe’s proper debut, Dammann’s perhaps figured it out.

“I think of [Restroy] as contemporary classical music. But I also like pop music,” the bassist said, somehow splitting the difference between the history of jazz on either coast and setting it within a singular Chicago ethic. “It doesn’t sound like pop music, but in my head it does.”

The history of that city’s jazzbo culture only flirts with New York concerns, although a healthy blurring of genre enables avant-gardists to move in and out of a scene with few attendant restrictions. On “11 Eggrolls,” Loren Oppenheimer’s tabla adds embellishment to Dammann’s writing as swells of electronics hustle the endeavor forward. It’s not quite Sun Ra levels of eccentricity. And even if Dammann doesn’t think of the whole thing as jazz, it is. Just in the least stodgy way possible.

“I feel like, if I had a teacher, it would have been Fred Anderson,” Dammann said about the Chicago jazz impresario who ran the Velvet Lounge, a southside club, up until his 2010 death. “He was there, hangin’ out and just being present. I loved his playing so much. … He could just make things happen in the moment and wasn’t playing standards too often. He was using whatever was in front of him to make music.”

Compared to some of the sax player’s work, Dammann’s might seem less emphatic and more curious. But no less confident. “Waiting,” another track off Restroy’s full length, swings easy. It’s not blustery. It’s just casual in approach and quiet by nature.

An astrological concept stating that pushing into one’s late 20s makes for a calmer existence explains the album’s name, Dammann said — not a reference to the supposedly Saturn-born Sun Ra. If he’s prowling around for a more serene existence, though, it’d seem that choosing jazz as an avenue to hash out an expressive midwife isn’t the wisest choice.

Thing is, though, we don’t all get to choose how we puzzle together being human or how to express it most succinctly. Dammann’s been called to music, giving the world his treatise on how to get over. And anyone in earshot might benefit a bit by at least listening. - Dave Cantor

Restroy is a 10-headed monster of epic proportions. Their Saturn Return (Milk Factory Productions) is an exquisite trip through modernistic experimentation that always seems to gel and come out on top. Nothing goes awry. Recorded in Chicago and Virginia, it features players from both geographical locales. Call it pop-chamber music.

The tabla of Loren Oppenheimer is a recurring theme in and of itself. His studies with Pandit Divyang Vakil have paid off. Vakil, an Indian classical tabla master, philosopher, guru and composer, has taught his subject well. He's a dynamo and his sound is delicious. So is the sound of James Davis on trumpet and Catherine Monnes on cello and violin. Throw in electronics, percussion, bass, tenor sax, guitar, flute and drums and you have, indeed, the sound of Saturn Return.

Bassist Chris Dammann wrote seven of eight and he has an ear for the odd. His previous combo, The 3 5 7 Ensemble, was all over the map. Restroy is confined within small spaces yet within that, it wiggles with a controlled energy that confounds yet mightily entertains.

You may not be able to eat "11 Eggrolls" but you sure can listen to it in all its 5:20 glory (you can dig it right now below). It's only one of eight highlights, yes, every track is a highlight. Between "Skin" and "Uma," "Waiting" and "Twenty-Seven," the music is surprising, syncopated, unusual yet accessible. Grounded in pop, so is it jazz? Sure! There's even a minimalistic classical strain at work (despite 10 pieces, there are no big-band contrivances). And don't let the minimalistic ethos scare you away. This is not wallpaper music. Hardly ambient, it certainly doesn't just lay there. There's a kinetic aspect to it all in which one can lose one's self in surrendering to its charms (there's certainly plenty of Restroy charm to go around). So surrender! Plus, it's all rather endearing, working, as it does, both as foreground music if you crank this sucker up loud. I bet your neighbors love it! Or, if you have guests over and really want to impress them with your esoteric tastes in music, have it floating unobtrusively in the air like a scent. Either way, this one's a winner. Looking forward to more. - Mike Greenblatt

The band Restroy featuring Chris Dammann/b, James Davis/tp, Nick Anaya/ts, Catherine Monnes/vi-cel, Tim Stine/g, Gina Sobel/fl, Daniel Richardson-Dylan Andrews, Loren Oppen heimer/perc and Matt Wyatt/elec-perc advertises itself as performing “contemporary music in the tradition of Great American Outsider Art.” I think what that means after listening to this album is that they like Blue Note styled hard bop, but with a few modern tweaks. It works well!

The rhythm team knows how to create a rollicking groove, as Davis’ warm trumpet embraces the bopping “Twenty –Seven” and the two horns swing along the sizzling groundwork on “UMA.” The drum work is crisp on the driving “Autumn Must Be Money” and with tablas, there’s an exciting pulse on “11 Eggrolls.” Things get a bit on the “Outsider Art” phase with Monnes’ violin and Sobel’s flute get jagged on “S.M.I.B.D.” and some Asian flavors create fragrant moods on “Waiting” and lovely lotus blossoms bloom on “Chris&Cathbffs4evahever.” Comfortable but keeping you on your toes. - George W. Harris

Restroy’s new record, Saturn Return, is kind of bassist Chris Dammann’s deal, and a huge deal it is. He saw a chance to bring two groups of very like minded musicians together — one from Chicago, one from Virginia — and see what happened. What happened is an intriguing interplay of chamber music, molasses jazz, and a functioning pop outer layer in the rhythmic, saucy beats above all that serious, free-form-feeling stuff.

Released on May 6, Saturn Return features 10 musicians and eight purely original instrumentals foraging around for wordless wonder — often led by the two composers, Dammann on bass and Catherine Monnes on cello and violin.

Dammann contributed all but one of the tracks, with Monnes singling out the third, “Skin.”

The other musicians in the two combined groups are tenor saxophonist/producer Nick Anaya and trumpeter James Davis throughout the album, guitarist Tim Stine, flutist Gina Sobel, drummers Dylan Andrews and Daniel Richardson, Tabla/frame drummer Loren Oppenheimer, and percussionist/electronics player/mixer Matt Wyatt on three to four various tracks.

Dammann, Anaya, and Davis recorded on the previous free form jazz album, Amongst The Smokestacks And Steeples, with Armageddon in mind, as a part of the core 3.5.7 Ensemble.

Fair warning: A lot of this stuff is far out, transcendental, incense music to downright messing with your mind. “S.M.I.B.D.” threatens not to make a lick of sense, yet is disarming in its sensory overload. “11 Eggrolls” toys with the balance of chaos and an almost OC-D focus on reaching the sweetest tones of horns gone wrong.

Before the listener has a chance to toss the album aside for Guns N’ Roses or Taylor Swift, something with a mindless, driving beat, bubblegum sentimentality, death metal posturing, or melody for days, “Autumn Must Be Money” comes on redeeming everything.

The sixth track is a horn player’s dream, swirling percussion, infinite possibilities, that succulent, sexy tone promising after-hours of foreplay. Oppenheimer’s exotic drumwork, Wyatt’s percussive electronics, Monnes vibrates on the scrimshaw of her moon-dappled strings, and the horn section shines through in a work that is accessibly midnight jazz, classically laced, and a touch global, primal even. It’s as if two worlds, beyond Virginia and Chicago, collided.

“Chris&CathyBFFs4evahever” is not only an odd title but an odd smash of East and West, classical and free jazz, that simply works on a subconscious level. Best played while gardening, or deciding on whether to downsize after the kid graduates from high school in the midst of a hailstorm and a daunting recession, the last track ends on a whimsical high note.

A press release for the new album reads: “More minimal, and concise than Dammann’s previous recordings with the 3.5.7 Ensemble, this music is about being with friends and finding common language between musicians of differing backgrounds. Saturn Return celebrates the unique voices of its musicians. Loren Oppenheimer’s experiences as a Tabla soloist and as a sincere disciple of Pandit Divyang Vakil are highlighted, as well as James Davis’s trumpet playing and Catherine Monnes’ lyrical cello work.”

Monnes really stands out, if it’s possible, in Saturn Return. She transforms her cello into jazz bass and, at times, a hybrid of jazz guitar and jazz drums.

This is a nice work in progress, and a new sound that needs to be followed closely. - Carol Banks Weber

restroy. saturn return. milk factory. If you play just one thing from this week’s new adds, make it restroy‘s saturn return; local folks growing beautiful, inventive music. every track is a winner, though 11 eggrolls + chris&cathybffs4evevahever made me smile. the big cast includes leader/bassist chris dammann; nick anaya, tenor; james davis, trumpet; catherine monnes, violin/cello; gina sobel, flute; tim stine, guitar; daniel richardson + dylan andrews sharing drums; loren oppenheimer, tablas; matt wyatt, electronics. - Ann Porotti