As widely renowned for his
unerring, intuitive grooves behind the kit as he is for his inventiveness as a
composer and bandleader, Bobby Previte stretches into some totally new musical
terrain on Mass, his RareNoise debut as a leader and followup to 2014's
cooperative trio project The New Standard with bassist Steve Swallow and
keyboardist Jamie Saft. A modernist re-imagining of the choral epic Missa
Sancti Jacobi by 15th century composer Guillaume Dufay, Previte's Mass
prominently features the imposing sound of cathedral pipe organ along with an
acclaimed early music chamber vocal group, the 11-voice Rose Ensemble conducted
by Jordan Sramek, and a slamming core group consisting of Previte on drums,
Marco Benevento on pipe organ and Rheem organ, Don McGreevy, Stephen O'Malley,
Mike Gamble and Jamie Saft on electric guitars and Reed Mathis on electric
bass. A kind of heavy metal requiem mass, full of thrashing feedback guitars
and grinding power chords, hellacious fuzz bass, thunderous beats and the
glorious sound of a Medieval vocal choir, Mass is unlike anything Previte has
done before in his extensive discography, which covers recordings by his bands
Weather Clear Track Fast, Latin for Travelers, The Coalition of the Willing,
Bump and the Beta Popes.
"I've been thinking about this idea for at least 12 or
13 years now," says thed rummer-composer. "In fact, I scored a
version of it in the early 2000s that I toured Europe with. Then when when I
got home, I decided it wasn't right and threw it all in the trash. It wasn't
powerful enough. So I went back to the drawing board."
Previte first encountered composer Guillaume Dufay in his
Early Music class in college. "You have to remember, when Dufay wrote his
music it was performed at a time in which there were no loud man-made sounds --
no amplifiers, airplanes, bombs, etc. Performed in a hard-walled stone church,
the sound racing around the walls and bouncing off the ceiling, it had to have
been an overwhelming experience. Now it
feels quiet, meditative, but in the context of its time I believe it was a
powerful, soul-shaking, transportive, otherworldly music. And I needed to match
that power, so I had to go with Metal -- a reviled music that somehow still
keeps coming."
Previte and his wife, the writer and choreographer Andrea
Kleine, presented the piece in 2007 as a full-blown theater production at the
Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. "She wrote the book and directed
it," he explains. "It was then that I met the Rose Ensemble. They
specialize in Early Music, which was essential to me. It's a very different discipline
than other vocal music. And for them to have the courage and the openness to do
a project like this, where I asked them to sing in a different tempo, key and
time signature while the crushing metal band was playing -- that was truly
inspiring."
The players involved in Mass are old cohorts of Previte.
Organist Benevento and bassist Reed played in his The Coalition of the Willing.
Saft played in Previte's Latin for Travelers band and is also a key member of
2014's The New Standard on RareNoise. Guitarist Gamble has been a longstanding
collaborator and is also a member of Previte's current working quartet, Bobby
Previte and the Visitors. Guitarists O'Malley and McGreevy are members of the
Seattle-based drone and doom metal bands Sunn O))) and Earth, respectively.
"O'Malley in particular used a gigantic wall of amps in the studio,"
says Previte. "If you want that sound, you can't use a little stomp box,
you have to actually move all that air. It was exhilarating to watch."
Twelve years in the making, Mass is the culmination of a
long road for Previte. "I am super happy with how it turned out, as it is
extremely difficult music to perform," he says. "Each of the three
pillars of the piece -- choir, metal trio, and pipe organ -- are operating within
their own algorithms, their own keys, time and tempo. And the piece is written
for them to be on parallel tracks but making a different fourth thing,
dovetailing together on the cadences. Eventually we all began to be able to
hear how it all worked, what notes the choir should be singing when you, as the
guitarist, were on your third beat of your bar number 15, a 4/4 bar, at quarter
note = 60, as they were in their 33rd bar of 6/8 in a completely different
tempo. It sounds crazy. Well, it is crazy! But the design worked eventually,
which is a testament to the musicians and their resilience."
Previte adds about his latest opus, "It has probably
the greatest cover art I have ever had on any of my records. Astonishing work
by, and all respect to, the artist, Hadi Nasiri."
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