NATHAN HUBBARD: Territory Games

Nathan Hubbard is a composer, percussionist, and a leader of several musical ensembles over the years. Since 2014, his ensembles and his work have received a number of top honors at the San Diego Music Awards. He has performed throughout the United States and Europe. Hubbard has just released Territory Games, a collection of spare arrangements over minimalist rhythm section accompaniment.

The compositions are based on short, repeated riffs and lines of the electric bass and electric guitar, with Hubbard playing percussion more on top of rather than inside of these lines. The heads, played by Ivan Trujillo on trumpet and Jose Solares on saxophone, have a subsequent Moebus quality. Listening to them gave me much the same feeling I get when I look at an M.C. Escher artwork, a little off-my-feet and a bit vertiginous, not standing at the edge of Half Dome vertiginous, more like standing on top of your roof vertiginous. But you know what I mean.

We let Escher toy with us as our eyes travel the canvas and reorient to different perspectives. In this way the artist draws us in. Hubbard’s compositions have a similar pull. Particularly once Trujillo and Solares start their solos, it’s impossible not to let yourself sink in and go inside this music. Experiencing these tunes is just as much of being within them as it is listening to them. I clicked all of these tunes again and again, wanting to experience them over and over.

The music has its antecedents: the free jazz of Ornette Coleman and the times when Don Van Vliet was truly inspired. You might also think of Charles Mingus, although the jazz misanthrope might take offense at the use of an electric bass.

Against a tattoo of the bass and guitar, Hubbard shines the light on his percussion in “Slack Theory.” With “Slacker Anthem” he and his ensemble create the perfect musical portrait for those of us whose role model is the Dude from The Big Lebowski. Lauren Leigh delivers a terrific vocal on “Territory Games.” The poetry of Adrian Arancibia on “Falling Too Slow” and “Territory Games (All These Entanglements)” is just as compelling as the music of this collection.

Kyle Bayquen was on electric bass Kevin Jones and Christian Molenaar played electric guitar. Roy Silverstein served as engineer at Rarified Recording Studio, with mastering by Stephen Langdon. The music of Territory Games is original, inspired, and guaranteed to grab your ears.