Notes
The Gate is Dan Peck (tuba, composition), Tom Blancarte (upright bass), and Brian Osborne (percussion). Moving fluidly between freely improvised music and jazz sludge, their sound is an inhuman collection of snorts, groans, and demonic screams, described as "dark, plodding, and at times bleak" (All About Jazz). Tuba and bass combine to erode conventional notions of melody and harmony, marching to the rhythm of decaying ship hulls falling against each other, metal scraping against metal. Incomprehensible languages combine with layers of viscous noise to create a suffocating and unrelenting texture of doom. The absolution of pure evil manifests itself in the resurrection of the undead. Womb breeds life and earth breeds death. The Gate has been opened. Recent Reviews: "The range of textures each player produces is impressive enough, but the invention and skill they bring to the task of combining their individual instrumental voices is breathtaking. They are great at allowing their scrapings and scuttlings to coalesce magically into growling riffs and malevolent low-register thunder, bridging the hitherto unspanned void between Don Cherry's Mu and early Swans." - The Wire 344 (Vomit Dreams) "They're more committed and capable in their pursuit of pure heaviosity, the rhythm section proceeding with an impressive blend of aggro and slovenliness while Dan Peck's tuba slathers thick oily smears of bottom-end brass all over the place." - The Wire 341 (Destruction of Darkness)
