NYC trio Consider the Source defy easy description. Drawing from progressive rock, fusion and jazz, with alien sounds soaked in Indian and Middle Eastern styles, CTS blends disparate parts into a striking, utterly original whole. Dubbed “Sci-Fi Middle Eastern Fusion”, the band’s music strikes a rare balance between cerebral and emotional, intellectual and primal. A relentless touring schedule has won the band a fervent following from California to Israel, with fans ranging from jam-band hippies and jazz cats to corpse-painted headbangers and prog geeks.
Formed in 2004, Consider the Source features Gabriel Marin on fretless double-neck guitar, bassist John Ferrara, and drummer/percussionist Jeff Mann. Marin “boasts insane chops, impeccable time, mastery of diverse traditional scales, rare fretless guitar fluency, and a gift for manipulating effects”. He channels the mystical fury of McLaughlin and Coltrane into wailing melodies, kaleidoscopic soundscapes and bone-shaking riffs. With a background in classical musics both European and Indian, and an instinct for avant-jazz and destructive metal, Marin’s hypnotic fusion of styles is ever unpredictable. Ferrara has been called “a tried and true nerd of the low end that translates the mystery of chops into a musical and improvisational environment”. His propulsive and percussive attack is equally suited to simple grooves and impossible chords, and can ground the music or launch it into space. His madcap gumbo of slap bass, Indian rhythms, earthy minimalism and complex tapping constantly pushes into strange new worlds, whilst dropping thick booty-clapping beats. Underneath them lies Mann’s rolling thunder; dense rhythmic architecture built from pure swagger and bounce. Half double-bass prog-metal, half crackle-pop Buddy Rich-swing, with African and Balkan swirls, Mann’s muscular, freewheeling polyrhythms are the engine fuel for CTS’s multiversal mischief. Even when not improvising, the band’s music is always a conversation, a roiling stew of dynamic interplay. Each member of Consider the Source alternately leads and follows, spars and assists; in any single song, alliances are made and broken, bargains struck and divorces finalized.
Touring from coast to coast, as well as Europe and the Middle East, has not only earned the band thousands of fans, but has allowed them to perform with a wide variety of well-known artists, including Victor Wooten, Wayne Krantz, King Crimson Projekt, Kris Myers (Umphrey’s McGee), Wyclef Jean, Andy Statman, Matt Darriau (Paradox Trio), Oteil Burbridge, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Dumpstaphunk, Keller Williams, George Porter Jr., Jeff Sipe, Panzerballet (Germany), Eatliz (Israel), Freak Kitchen (Sweden), Morglbl (France) and many others. They have performed at numerous festivals and events including Burning Man, Gathering of the Vibes, the NYC Fretless Guitar Festival, Catskill Chill, Sun Seekers Ball (Canada), Aura Music & Arts Festival (Florida), Jazz Fest (New Orleans), Head For The Hills Festival & SXSW (Texas), Rootwire (Ohio) and the NYC Gypsy Festival, to name a handful.
Consider the Source at The Lazy Dog
Boulder, CO
Friday, March 20th, 2015
21+
$7
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/613153555455186
