The eponymous debut album from Black Duck, the Chicago-based band of guitarist/bassist Douglas McCombs, guitarist Bill MacKay, and drummer Charles Rumback, is out now on orange vinyl, silver compact disc, and colorless digital through Thrill Jockey. Delivered sans vocals, the record’s eight tracks include one composition from each participant and five pieces improvised in the studio for a sound that’s wide-ranging yet cohesive. They’ve been improving live for a while now, and it’s not hard to tell.
Douglas McCombs is surely best-known for his work in Chicago mainstays Tortoise, but along with forming Pullman (two albums on Thrill Jockey) and Brokeback (four albums on Thrill Jockey), he’s played bass for a long time in the superb Eleventh Dream Day (over a dozen albums on assorted labels, including Thrill Jockey); more recently, he’s stepped into the touring bassist role in The Sea and Cake.
Bill MacKay has recorded extensively as a solo artist (numerous self-released affairs plus two albums for Drag City) and in collaboration with Ryley Walker (two studio albums, one each for Whistler Records and Drag City), Katinka Kleijn (Stir for Drag City) and Nathan Bowles (Keys for Drag City). Additionally, MacKay is half of BCMC with Cooper Crain of Bitchin Bajas, which MacKay describes as an “experimental groove-drone project.”
Charles Rumback has also recorded with Ryley Walker (two albums, one each on Dead Oceans and Thrill Jockey) in a discography that includes over four dozen recordings including solo albums (on Clean Feed, eyes & ears, and Astral Spirits) plus an abundance of collaborations and bands, with much of the output aligned with Chicago’s fertile free jazz scene.
Rumback’s improvising experience and McCombs’ time in the jazz influenced Tortoise might inspire assumptions over the nature of Black Duck’s sound, but opener “Of the Lit Backyards,” composed by McCombs, is reminiscent of Brokeback’s cinematic desert twang, but with a perceptible and appealing early ’60s pop twist.
Contrasting, MacKay’s piece “Delivery,” sequenced third on the record, is a tougher rocker with a surplus of gnawing guitar thickness and an almost tribal groove providing a loose compositional connection to the McCombs-penned track. The expansiveness of the dual guitar playing cultivates a psychedelic air that’s further amplified in the improvised tracks, e.g. the up-all-night extra bright morning sunshine post-San Francisco ballroom vibes of “Second Guess” in particular.
Unsurprisingly, drummer Rumback’s composition “The Trees Are Dancing,” sequenced fifth, is a sturdy rhythmic excursion. McCombs adds heft with some rather large bass playing throughout the cut, while MacKay’s string burn establishes links to the arid qualities in McCombs’ track and the psych layering heard in the guitarist’s own piece.
The tracks collectively built in the studio include the short “Foothill Daze,” which hits halfway between ambient country and rumbling travelogue audio vérité, and “Thunder Fade That Earth Smells,” where hovering abstraction gets wedded to rock heaviness, a combination nicely complementing the almost Bill Orcutt-like string tendrils in “Second Guess” and the pulsing acid waves of “Lemon Treasure.”
The album’s closing track “Light’s New Measure” begins with cascades of string glisten before transitioning into precise cyclical forward motion with Rumback’s brushwork as the bedrock. It reinforces that Black Duck’s debut thrives on confidence and familiarity as the set is utterly lacking in the tentative.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
