On their first solo release with the renowned progressive jazz label International Anthem, bassist, composer, and in-demand collaborator Anna Butterss has thrown down something very special. Having worked closely with everyone from Jeff Parker to Phoebe Bridgers, Butterss here summons their own band of luminaries - Josh Johnson (sax), Gregory Uhlmann (guitar), and Ben Lumsdaine (drums, guitar) - for a master class in aural exploration. - Flying Out
Mighty Vertebrate is the International Anthem leader debut from Adelaide, Australia-born bassist and composer Anna Butterss.
Butterss has steadily become a first-call for tour and studio work since moving to Los Angeles (after a stint in Bloomington, Indiana) in 2014. They’ve racked up credits with notables across the indie, jazz, and pop worlds alike – including Makaya McCraven, Phoebe Bridgers, Jason Isbell, Andrew Bird, and Daniel Villarreal – but their most notable contributions to the burgeoning West Coast creative music scene have been as a core member of both Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet and rising proto-trance supergroup SML, who Pitchfork says “represents the thrilling next phase of a vibrant L.A. community.”
Their first solo album, Activities, was similarly hailed by Pitchfork as "one of the most exciting, undersung jazz releases of 2022," but the improvise-edit-reconstruct method used on that record couldn’t be further from the foundation of Mighty Vertebrate, which began amid the very real challenge of threading solo work into the dense calendrical web of an in-demand collaborator.
“I had just gotten off of a bunch of touring at the end of 2022 and just wanted to write music,” says Butterss. “The best way for me to do that, I’ve found, is to set myself a discrete and focused task."
- I’m going to make a song where the bass doesn’t function in the role of a bass.
- I’m going to work on this for an hour and then I’m going to stop.
- I’m going to make a song that uses groups of three-bar phrasing.
- I want to sample something and make it into a song.
- I’m going to start with a drum machine.
Tracklist:
1. Bishop
2. Shorn
3. Dance Steve
4. Ella
5. Lubbock
6. Pokemans
7. Breadrich
8. Seeing You
9. Counterpoint
10. Saturno