photos by Caleb Bryant Miller
New York City instrumental avant-prog metal trio BASSOON has just issued a video for “Succumbent,” the title track to the band’s second LP, released last year on Nefarious Industries.
Nestled in Brooklyn’s art-metal underground since 2007, BASSOON started as the drum-machine-powered duo of Stuart Popejoy with Harvey Milk bassist Steve Tanner before evolving into the current trio of Popejoy on bass and keyboards with stalwart Brooklyn polymaths Sean Moran on guitar and John Mettam on drums.
BASSOON‘s Succumbent brings fresh forays into advanced heaviness, drawing upon Magma-esque intricacy, austere minimalism, ‘70s fusion/jazz harmony, and more pounding riffs like those from their first release in 2012. The album’s intro “Omnidolent” provides a wide-ranging overture from stoner anthem to duophonic dissonance, followed by the austere blast-rock of “Succumbent” before ending the A-side with the polyrhythmic power rocker “Ossuarium.” The back side presents two contrasting takes on heavy minimalism: “Pentisept” layers mathy melodicism over a shifting drum ostinato, while “Cyclops” cooks a slowly twisting intervallic mono-groove to a blast-beat boil. The album finishes with the Brahmsian prog of “Born To Doom.”
Succumbent was recorded and mixed by legendary engineer Tony Maimone at Studio G in Brooklyn (The Book Of Knots, Ani DiFranco, Mike Watt), mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music (Mastodon, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge), and completed with art/design by the band’s Stuart Popejoy.
The video for “Succumbent” was shot at Main Drag Music in Brooklyn, directed by Caleb Bryant Miller. Here, BASSOON‘s onstage heaviness and intricacy is refracted through Miller’s intense pallet: as one of the more austere and challenging tracks on their same-named 2023 release, hallucinatory closeups of the rockers grimacing faces gives comic release to the pummeling barrage of sound.
Check out BASSOON’s “Succumbent” video where the album is available digitally and on vinyl alongside merch and prior videos at Nefarious Industries RIGHT HERE.
BASSOON has also booked several new shows in Maine — Portland on June 27th and Kittery June 29th – as well as a Brooklyn show on July 17th with Sally Gates Trio and Nefarious cohorts PAK.
BASSOON Live:
6/27/2024 Aphodion Theater – Portland, ME w/ Confusatron, Jamie Saft
6/29/2024 The Dance Hall – Kittery, ME
7/17/2024 Main Drag Music – Brooklyn, NY w/ PAK, Sally Gates Trio
“…a twisty, hypnotic math problem of a song… Just try not to nod along with the band.” – Decibel Magazine of the track “Cyclops”
“They all have chops honed and sharpened on the NYC jazz scene, but they don’t let that get in their way. The new album blasts through a half dozen instrumentals in just over a half hour with pinpoint accuracy and pounding rhythms. They make complexity sound easy.” – The Red Hook Star-Revue
“It blasts with the force of Mastodon in some areas, moves into Magma in others, combines that with elements of Can and Present so the listener never knows quite what to expect next … for those who want their instrumental music to take them in new directions while blasting the speakers off the wall.” – Progressor
“There is no studio trickery here: three guys playing their instruments, very well, without an excess of embellishment… There can be no disputing the results: kick-ass satisfying! It’s a balanced listen that finishes with epic-ness.” – Prog Dog
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