The title of the new DK3 album is “Neutrons,” which guitarist Duane Denison says refers to “a person unaffiliated with a gang.”
“I was watching the news one night and the reporter was talking to some gang guys in my neighborhood,” Denison says while relaxing with fellow band members Jim Kimball and Ken Vandermark in his Humboldt Park apartment. “And one of them says, `Whenever there’s violence we just shoot each other. We don’t mess with no kids, no neutrons. We just push them out of the way.’ “
“Unaffiliated” is an apt way of describing the kind of music made by the DK3, which touches on jazz improvisation, movie-soundtrack texture, rock aggression and avant-garde experimentation without fully embracing any of those genres.
The trio is emblematic of an emerging gray-area of music in the Chicago underground. Seasoned instrumentalists with varied backgrounds in underground rock, free jazz, the avant-garde and world music are forming hybrid ensembles such as the DK3, Liquid Soul, Broken Wire, Isotope, Gastr del Sol, Toe 2000, the DKV trio and Lake of Dracula.
The DK3, formerly the Denison-Kimball Trio, explores this genre-hopping terrain with incisive brilliance on its third album, “Neutrons” (Quarterstick). Founding members Denison and drummer Jim Kimball (both members of Chicago rockers the Jesus Lizard) are joined by tireless jazz reed-man about town, Ken Vandermark, who is featured on at least a half-dozen recent recordings that explore the gamut from free improvisation (on the “DKV Trio-Fred Anderson” disc on Okka Disc) to garage rock (the Crown Royals’ “All Night Burner” on Estrus).
“Every musician I’ve played with has played all different styles of music, and they’re not close-minded to anything — it’s just a given,” Vandermark says. “Before I met Duane personally I was really into the Jesus Lizard, seeing the band live. I think a lot of what makes Chicago is that there are thriving improvised music scenes and rock scenes going on simultaneously. And if you’re into music of a wide variety, it’s easy to see all of it, and that’s where the blending comes in.
“So I don’t go into something like this thinking this is my `rock offshoot’ project. I try to listen to what’s happening and see where I can contribute.”
Though each musician is highly accomplished on his instrument, Denison says that “it’s not about virtuosity so much as sonic things, textures, which occur anytime you play with different people or even in a different room. It brings out different aspects of your personality. At the end of the day, it’s entertainment, as well, no matter what kind of music it is. I hear these monster virtuoso guitar records on Blue Note, and it just gets tedious after a while. Why not try to experiment a bit more in the studio where you don’t necessarily know what the outcome is going to be?”
On “Neutrons,” the DK3 explores everything from head-on improvisational collisions to cut-and-paste, studio-as-instrument collages. A sense of humor shines through in the clomping rhythms of “The Traveling Salesman,” a sense of adventure as Kimball conjures odd percussive effects out of a homemade instrument called an aquaharp on “Heavy Water,” bought for him by relatives at an art fair in Michigan.
Even without a vocalist, each of the eight pieces has enough structure and melodiousness to be recognized as pop music. But jazz and avant-garde aficionados will find a lot to like, as well, as the musicians interact and fly free within the song’s loose boundaries.
“I think there’s more interaction with this than in the Jesus Lizard,” Kimball says. “More give and take. Part of the excitement for me was not knowing how some things were going to turn out. We had about half the album pretty well structured, but the rest was an experiment.”
Says Vandermark: “I’m used to using the studio as a way of documenting a band, but here the studio became more of a tool. We overdubbed some things, and there were parts that were really open, which is pretty unusual to do in the context of a pop record. So it’s not really a pop record or jazz record, but we found some interesting cross hairs between the two.”
Denison says that freedom to ignore traditional boundaries has at least something to do with his proximity, or lack of, to the mainstream record industry.
“Not being on the East Coast or West Coast, things just steadily roll along here without a whole lot of media attention, which I think is good thing,” the guitarist says. “Ideas have a chance to develop and mature, people can work the bugs out of their shtick in a natural kind of way. In New York or Los Angeles you can’t turn around without someone breathing down your neck. People can’t get together and jam without talking to their lawyers first.”
Lizard news
Denison and Kimball will retreat to the studio with David Yow and David Wm. Sims in a few days to record a new Jesus Lizard album with former Gang of Four guitarist Andy Gill as producer. An earlier session with rock legend John Cale was a bust, Denison says: “To make a bold statement, you should be willing to let things get a little tasteless now and then, whether it’s music, movies, literature. When you’re so clean and precise, it’s just not going to happen. There will be no excitement. I think Cale has lost touch with that.”
