Bright Madness is the third album by Improvising trio Squanderers who recorded and instantly composed the album in Asheville North Carolina, the trio are Wendy Eisenberg, David Grubbs, and Shimmy Disc Legend Bonner Kramer. The album was recorded by Gar Ragland at Citizen Recording in Asheville on March 30th 2025 and mixed and produced by Kramer.
The album opens with Theme For Bright Madness which is what you might play if the sunlight has suddenly blinded you, while trying to bring sanity to an insane world, minimalist bass and guitar figures appear through your squinting eyes.
Theme For The Casino At 5am when you've finally decided to leave, if you've won or lost is unclear, but you are certainly bleary eyed and no longer concentrating enough to continue gambling, slow mournful edge to this, could indicate you have once again squandered your last month's pay check at the blackjack table.
Theme For Craned Necks has downhearted keyboards with slowly evolving guitar notes revelling in eternal sadness. Theme For A Soft Resolution that is calm and with laid back carefully picked guitars this is for chilling out and relaxing with, ever so slowly evolving and shifting with deliberation.
Theme For Whiskey The Turnspit Dog who is trotting along nicely, seeking a new companion to chase around and around the Turnspit, hoping to be allowed some of that meat that he's helping to cook, the endless cycle of roasting that meat for hours evinced in the revolving guitar lines. Theme For Femme Presenting Hands that don't do dishes, having been carefully manicured, like the sounds they are presenting, bass notes formally presenting the ideas that the guitar works around.
Theme For the World's Consigliere who would be Todd Blanche, if Dumpty is to be believed, this tune should accompany his walk to his cell in Guantanamo Bay, while he pleads that he and his client did nothing illegal, or untoward to deserve to live in a cage in the roasting heat, descending bass notes depicting his shattered belief, that he would always be beyond the law a real criminal mastermind.
The hunger pains start to hit, while he tries to figure out if a man like him can meditate his hunger away, his masters voice babbling endlessly away in his head, he wishes he could find the calm at the centre of this piece.
Theme for The Glacier Within Him has cadences of Iceland by Michael Pinheas the guitars whipping up an ice storm while you cling to that glacier while your mind melts, bass notes rise within you.
The album closes with Theme For Nihilogisms that evolves from almost nothing, feeling its way towards a new age symposium on the nihilist's favourite tones and frequencies. While they search to perfect those notes. Slowly seeking more intricate variations and subtle bass tonalities, within the twin guitar spatiality, finally emerging from the deep cocoon, into slivers of light shining in the ever darkening sky.
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