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Nubdug Ensemble — Third
(Bandcamp Cat Synth ACHS1503, 2024, CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2024-12-06

Third Cover art

Great things take time, and this third full length Nubdug release is one such thing. That guy on the cover wearing a blue suit with a red tie who appears to be doing a little dance as he comes through the door is not Donald J. Trump. No, the crown on his head should offer a clue — this latest offering by Nubdug Ensemble is a musical adaption of Shakespeare's Tragedy of Julius Caesar, like none you’ve heard before or would ever expect, two long years in the making, and the person coming through the door is none other than the man himself, before his final fateful meeting with Brutus. Third encompasses so many different styles of music — jazz, chamber, pop, prog rock, psychedelic, funk, Broadway, and just about everything else one might think of, yet all these styles work together brilliantly to produce a single conceptual whole, rather than a divergent collection of unrelated ideas; one can easily tell that Nubdug main man Jason Berry had this whole concept worked out well ahead of actually writing any of the music, and as a result everything falls into place perfectly. Going through the album one will find that the eleven tracks alternate between vocal pieces with singers Sami Stevens and Jill Rogers fronting the band, sometimes each alone and sometimes together, and instrumental pieces, with one more of the latter than the former. The guest list is immense, this almost certainly qualifies as big band, with Steve Adams (saxes), Jason Bellenkes (clarinet, saxes), Sheldon Brown (bass clarinet, alto flute), Chris Grady (trumpet, flugelhorn), Scott Larson (trombone), Brett Warren (basses), Crystal Pascucci (cello), John Ettinger (violin), Myles Boisen (guitars, e-bow piano, percussion), John Hanes (drums and percussion on some tracks). G. Calvin Weston (drums and percussion on other cuts), Dan Cantrell (harpsichord on two cuts), Mark Clifford (vibraphone, glockenspiel, crotales), Amanda Chaudhary (keyboards, synth, electronics) and Jason Berry (keyboards, electronics, programming and more, plus project direction and artwork), and much of that artwork takes the form of a beautifully illustrated sixteen-page booklet that features a full page illustration for every track, and all of the album’s lyrics. There are so many standout tracks that I won’t even try and list them, instead I recommend listening to the entirety of Third at the link below, then (if you are so inclined) grab the CD with its six-panel cover, booklet, and artwork.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Vacuum Tree Head / Nubdug Ensemble, Amanda Chaudhary, Grant Calvin Weston

More info
http://nubdugensemble.bandcamp.com/album/third

 

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