The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis :: Deface The Currency
Photo: Diona Mavis
Photo: Shervin Lainez
A critical collaboration that first began to take sonic shape in 2019, following an intimate invitation to a live sit-in, New York-based tenor saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis joins forces with the legendary DC-based supergroup The Messthetics for the captivating combo’s sophomore album, “Deface the Currency.” A title that couldn’t be more transparent amid this fearful flood of injustices and worldwide weirdness, the quintet takes its listeners on a justified journey through the calibrated climates of poetic power and transcendental timing, which, for a moment, harmoniously heals the wounds that only seem to widen in this day and age. After the release of their highly anticipated self-titled debut in the spring of 2024, the quintet carefully cleanses the center of the universe by demonstrating a dynamic that radiates the radicalness of the group and its members’ individual influences simultaneously in a visceral void that can be seen around the world through closed eyes and open ears. Representing the lively house band for one of the late Pharaoh Sanders’ afterparties in the divine hallways, where framed portraits of Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, Charlie Parker, and the Coltranes hang high in perfectly placed rectangles of glass like a museum of melody. While eagerly spiraling into the atmospheric abyss like a spiritual spinning top, the quintet embraces creative challenge with mighty force and abstract accuracy with the album’s first single, “Gestations”. An explosive fusion of cosmic color and tonal texture, this powerful precursor is a sophisticated shadow that lunges forward without disturbing the decorations of the sonic seance laid out on the hardwood floors of the band’s psychedelic palace, someplace deep in the jams of jazz, rhythm, and rock. Set for release on the iconic Impulse! label on January 20th, followed by a spring run from Portland to Atlanta, Ontario to DC, the quintet takes on the US in a highly anticipated fashion, while exploring the liberating layers of their intense identity in the world of contemporary jazz.
