15 years separate
Todd Sickafoose's 2008
Tiny Resistors and 2023's
Bear Proof, but the bassist wasn't idle: he moved back to the West Coast, continued his long-running working relationship with singer/songwriter
Ani DiFranco, served as an orchestrator on the musical Hadestown, and played as a sideman in groups led by violinist
Jenny Scheinman,
Allison Miller, and
Ben Goldberg. For his 2023 album
Bear Proof, he put together an ensemble which features many of these collaborators --
Scheinman,
Goldberg, and
Miller are all part of the group, as is cornet player
Kirk Knuffke, who joined
Scheinman and
Goldberg in
Miller's band
Boom Tic Boom. The octet also includes guitarist
Adam Levy, who also played on
Tiny Resistors, as well as pianist
Erik Deutsch and accordionist
Rob Reich.
The album's nine tracks form an hour-long suite, a "surreal meditation on boom and bust," as
Sickafoose calls it, recorded in one continuous live-in-the-studio setting with only a few corrections added afterwards -- and the fact that it was recorded in Berkeley's Fantasy Studios, which once hosted musicians as diverse as
Santana,
Herbie Hancock,
Stanley Turrentine,
Huey Lewis, and even
Green Day, and has since closed its doors -- somewhat ties in with the album's theme of fortune, success, and downturn. The individual compositions offer a broad variety of textures, moods, and visuals, moving between serene landscapes and a tender
Bill Frisell flair ("Magnetic North") and more dramatic settings ("Prospects"), reflecting the yearning for prosperity ("The Gold Gate"), the triumphs ("Turns Luck") as well as the uncertainty of the journey ("Boom Bust Startup Ruin," a mini-suite which condenses the album's themes into a single nine-minute piece).
Sickafoose balances impressionistic, free parts with more earthy rhythms (such as the confident strut of "Switched On"), and the tunes sometimes even reflect the different backgrounds of the fortune seekers on their hopeful travels toward a better life ("Flush"). Each musician gets plenty of opportunity to shine -- witness
Levy's sunny guitar and
Scheinman's adventurous violin on "The Gold Gate,"
Reich's joyful accordion on "Magnetic North," or
Knuffke's playful turn on "Switched On," for example -- but
Sickafoose's tunes have an orchestral feel, staying focused on the ensemble work and the narrative over individual solos. The result is an ambitious, multi-layered piece of music where the big picture is as important as the details. ~ Christian Genzel
