While avant-funk trio Medeski, Martin & Wood relegates itself to rare live appearances and records these days, native New Yorker Billy Martin aka ‘illyB’ has kept a somewhat lower but hardly less prolific profile than his bandmates. Guilty is the latest product of his varied endeavors as composer, percussionist, visual artist, educator and record producer, and it’s an eccentric effort slightly removed from the New Orleans-influenced Wicked Knee of 2012 and the groove-laden project with keyboardist Wil Blades, Shimmy, that came out the very same year.
Beginning with the atmospheric “In Doubly,” musicianship such as Page McGinnis’ guitar work becomes immediately informed with a tangible sense of adventure as well as innate propulsion. Martin and his seven collaborators, including most conspicuously guitarist Mark Ribot (on five cuts) and comrade Medeski (on the single track “Geek Love”) are willing, eager and able to embrace the arcane, not just for the sake of its esoteric traits, but also to explore its fundamental nature. On “Home Beat Home,” for instance, Alexandria Smith utilizes her trumpet to precisely knit together the sonic strains emanating of the other musicians’ instruments.
Meantime, illy B. himself maintains a variety of beats and, as has almost always been the case in his prior work solo and in a group setting, drumming like that on “Thieves” still sounds like an outward and wholly natural manifestation of his own internal rhythm. As a result, no matter how diaphanous the air arising from “Preceedance,” the pulse of percussion remains steadfast. And “Lonely Surf,” quickly becomes a stark evocation of the natural phenomenon (plus the various tunes it’s inspired over the years): the near-subliminal force of the rumbling undertow comes through as distinctly as the jagged crash of waves. The relatively short duration of this album’s eleven tracks (roughly thirty-five minutes in total) actually helps disseminate all the different textures within, so the end effect is simultaneously (and equally) hypnotizing and tranquilizing.
With no cut longer than near five minutes and most within the two to three-minute range, hearing Guilty is the aural equivalent of watching a slide show of impressionist art proceeding via inexorable but well-paced fades and dissolves. Co-producers Martin and multi-instrumentalist Rob Reinfurt deserve some special kudos in that regard because the track sequencing is particularly astute, including the placement of a comparatively upbeat “Hair Braid;” at the virtual homestretch of hearing the LP in its entirety, this number markedly enhances pacing that’s otherwise (almost but not quite) imperceptible.
This record is a dense, seamless whole, but that only elevates the understated participation of, to name just two contributors, Jen Liu with her electric harp on “Tides” and Martin Desh’s electronics on “Montaukett Sky.” Bonafide renaissance man that he is, Billy Martin aka Illy B here proffers a highly creative piece of work that falls squarely between the experimental and mainstream categories for which he originally devised his independent label Amulet Records. That Guilty resides in an amorphous middle ground doesn’t lessen either its challenging nature or the pleasure derived from experiencing it.
