Shortly after the release of their 2024 album, Mid Spiral, which multi-faceted Canadian group BADBADNOTGOOD initially rolled out as a series of three EPs, Anthony Dean-Harris sat down with the group while they were in Portland for the Best Day Ever Festival at McMenamins Edgefield to talk about their latest release and the evolution & latest expanded iteration of this ever evolving, constantly fascinating sextet that epitomizes Jazz Without Boundaries.
0:00 - Bassist Chester Hansen talks about why Mid Spiral released as a trio of EPs – Chaos, Order and Growth – to avoid cutting any material recorded over eight days in Los Angeles while in town for the Grammys in February 2024
1:18 - Drummer Alex Sowinski expands on the idea behind Mid Spiral’s formation where all collaborators involved came with songs
1:50 - Sowinski & Hansen expand on how the grouping of the songs and mixing of the EPs led to the real time release of those EPs and subsequently Mid Spiral as a whole
2:53 - Reedist, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Leland Whitty explains the formation of the new album as a solution for creating new music for the next run of live shows
3:28 - Whitty expounds on Mid Spiral’s intended approachability in melodicness & rhythm in contrast to their more explorative, proggy jams of 2021’s Talk Memory
4:10 - On the latest iteration of BADBADNOTGOOD as a sextet with Felix Fox-Pappas on keys, trumpeter Kaelin Murphy, percussionist Juan Carlos Medrano and guitarist Tyler Lott out of Los Angeles
5:20 - #sextet
6:33 - Hansen noting how the folks assembled informed the songs more than the songs informing the people; Sowinski notes how the experience of music appreciation shapes the work created