Recording: Joseph Shabason

Artist: Joseph Shabason

Song: Neil McCauley

Recorded at Monarch Tavern, October 17, 2017.

Joseph Shabason - Neil McCauley

This evening of ambient pop was conceived by Riparian Acoustics (Nick Storring's post-Ratio vehicle for show curation) and given logistical support by Burn Down the Capital and packed the Monarch Tavern with a fairly mixed crowd. It was, in fact, at Ratio that I had seen this project in a nascent form. Now reverted back to Shabason's own name, that set a year ago, this set and the recordings on the wonderful Aytche album draw from an overlapping pool of musicians from Shabason's band DIANA and adjacent T.O. crews. On this night, the band was a true all-star unit featuring Joseph Shabason (sax, effects, keyb), Matt Smith (samples, keyb), Hugh Marsh (electric violin), Kieran Adams (percussion) and Bram Gielen (bass). As beautiful as the textures on the album are, it's even more impressive to hear it done live with the group offering studio lushness without sounding the least bit stiff or pre-programmed. The vibe that this piece aims at can be gleamed from the fact that it's named for Robert De Niro's character in Michael Mann's Heat. This live version stretches out with beautiful ambiance from March and Gielan before pulling in the rest of the players.