Jack Silverman Quartet - Prince of Shadows (2024) [Hi-Res]

Centripetal Force announces the release of Prince of Shadows from the Jack Silverman Quartet. The album is being presented in a 300-copy vinyl edition and will be available digitally. Some of the music on the album will be featured on the soundtrack to Mindtraveler, a documentary slated for release later in 2024. Prince of Shadows will be released March 1, 2024.

This is Jack's fourth appearance on Centripetal Force. He is the guitarist on both Nashville Ambient Ensemble releases and had his own Live at the 5 Spot album released by Centripetal Force in 2021.

The seeds of the Jack Silverman Quartet were planted in September 2020, when bassist Brook Sutton invited Jack and drummer Robert Crawford to Brook’s recording studio — The Studio Nashville — for an informal jam. After several months of no gigs due to the pandemic, all three were itching to play. Listening back to recordings of that session, they recognized a unique chemistry that had them excited to start a project together. They turned their energy towards rehearsals and stumbled upon their style, instrumental music that straddled several genres but didn’t really sound like anything else.

When playing live did resume, the trio invited Matt Glassmeyer to play some Wurlitzer at a show, and they immediately knew they’d found the final link, a simpatico musical force whose fearless sonic explorations took the music to another level. (Glassmeyer also plays sax, contra alto clarinet, flute, percussion and whatever happens to be lying around.) Over time the group’s sound continued evolving, weaving elements of psychedelic music, jazz noir, post-rock textural experimentation, and improvisation, while exploring the contrast between melody and dissonance, to create an immersive musical experience — what might best be described as a film soundtrack collaboration between The Lounge Lizards, Pink Floyd and Angelo Badalamenti.

In 2022, filmmaker Greg Mallozzi, after seeing the group perform at The Blue Room at Third Man Records, approached Jack about contributing music to the soundtrack for his upcoming documentary Mindtraveler, about the life of enigmatic parapsychology researcher Andrija Puharich. The group then went into The Studio Nashville, with Roger Moutenot (Yo La Tengo, Sleater-Kinney, Paula Cole, Lambchop) at the helm, to record what became Prince of Shadows. Some of the music was structured, including three vastly different takes on the title track, two of which feature titles that are anagrams for that title: “Phasic Fernwoods” and “ESP Fashion Crowd.” Two other tracks — “In Case of Emergency” and “Break Glass,” are radically different versions of the same composition, and in fact were taken from one continuous jam in the studio that morphed from the eerie minimalism of the former to the full on psych-rock freakout of the latter. The rest of the album was culled from various improvisations. (John Mailander from Bruce Hornsby’s band contributes fiddle on several tracks.) The final product is an apt representation of the group’s live performances, capturing the quartet’s transcendent, sometimes haunting, always original sound.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Jack Silverman Quartet - Prince of Shadows (3:54)
1.02 - Jack Silverman Quartet - Faraday Dream (4:03)
1.03 - Jack Silverman Quartet - Pyramid Scheme (3:22)
1.04 - Jack Silverman Quartet - Crisis Apparition (1:45)
1.05 - Jack Silverman Quartet - Transliminal Criminal (4:51)
1.06 - Jack Silverman Quartet - Phasic Fernwoods (4:43)
1.07 - Jack Silverman Quartet - In Case of Emergency (4:04)
1.08 - Jack Silverman Quartet - Nightfall on the Nile (4:33)
1.09 - Jack Silverman Quartet - ESP Fashion Crowd (4:20)
1.10 - Jack Silverman Quartet - Break Glass (2:25)