Event
Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber (Summer Concert)
BURNT SUGAR THE ARKESTRA CHAMBER’S first New England tour kicks off at Real Art Ways and supports their latest release, If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth Pt. Two, and their latest sonic “play pen,” The Burnt Sugar SmokeHouse! Each Show of “Never Playing Anything the Same Way Once” will be special unto itself.
“Burnt Sugar’s double live opus If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth, first released on two CD-Rs in 2005 and now available on Bandcamp, documents key portions of several gigs from spring and summer 2004, including one — from the Vision Festival, the group’s first appearance there — that I was actually present for. Dubbed “Himatsuri (Fire Festival)” on disc, it’s a roughly 45-minute, slowly evolving performance that balances horns, strings, and some unearthly vocalizing, and the lineup was absolutely stacked, including Matana Roberts on alto sax, Mazz Swift on violin, and Shahzad Ismaily on banjo and bass. It was easily the most exciting thing I saw at the VF that year.
Well, now they’ve released a second volume, which features performances recorded in Detroit and Ohio in 2022, plus some studio additions from 2024. Over the years, Burnt Sugar transformed from a genre-less improvising ensemble to a shit-hot funk-rock band with a wild streak. They did shows where they tackled the music of other artists, albeit never becoming a mere “cover band”, and there are versions of Steely Dan’s “Black Cow” and the Ohio Players’ “Pain” (here retitled “Back Pain”, because they’re playing it backwards) that couldn’t be anyone but Burnt Sugar. But it’s the original conduction/composition/
“Electric Miles with soul, Maggot Brain with a PHD, the Hendrix Evans band of dreams, the underwater funk some hear in A.R. Kane.” – Robert Christgau
Burnt Sugar Arkestra Chamber is “a territory band, a neo-tribal thang, a community hang, a society music guild aspiring to the condition of all that is molten, glacial, racial, spacial, oceanic, mythic, antiphonal and telepathic.” – the late Greg Tate
“Listening/watching Burnt Sugar play live is an intense, amazing experience. A band of equals, where every single unique note is part of the game. If there existed a place where Sun Ra’s Arkestra would meet George Clinton’s Funkadelic/Parliament, it’s there that you will find Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber.” – Pino Saulo/Rai Radio
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Playing on June 6th are:
Shelley Nicole – Vocals/Conduction
Miss Olithea – Vocals/Electronics
Bruce Mack – Vocals/Conduction
Lewis “Flip” Barnes – Trumpet
“Moist” Paula Henderson – Bari Sax
Leon Gruenbaum – Keyboards/Samchillian/Talk Box
Ben Tyree – Electric Guitar
Marque Gilmore Tha Inna Most – Trap Drums/Electronics/Conduction
Jared Michael Nickerson – Electric Bubble Bass
BSAC will be supporting their latest release – If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth, Pt. Two – and will include a “Burnt Sugar SmokeHouse” element in these June New England performances. The “SmokeHouse” is where you’ll find BSAC-member-led bands performing short sizzlin’ hot sets.
Coo Dank Off The Top of The Dome Conduction
Take a listen to more Burnt Sugar on Bandcamp: https://
