{"id":21109,"date":"2021-06-10T05:30:09","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T09:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=21109"},"modified":"2021-06-09T15:22:09","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T19:22:09","slug":"dialogue-now-consolidated-returns-from-a-self-imposed-exile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/10\/dialogue-now-consolidated-returns-from-a-self-imposed-exile\/","title":{"rendered":"Dialogue Now! Consolidated Returns From a Self-Imposed Exile"},"content":{"rendered":"

An edited version of this feature appeared previously in <\/span><\/em>SF Weekly<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Socialism is back. Though it was widely popular in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, the political philosophy endured years in the wilderness thanks to its vilification during the McCarthy era, the \u201cme decade\u201d of the 1970s, the Reagan era and beyond. But the inescapable realities of income inequality have realigned popular thinking: in 2021, concepts that would have been considered fringe ideas a decade ago \u2013 universal basic income, healthcare for all, the rights of the homeless \u2013 are now part of mainstream dialogue.<\/p>\n

And against that backdrop, it makes sense that Consolidated is back, too. From the late \u201980s into the 21st century, the radical activist\/industrial\/funk\/hip-hop band drew notices for its confrontational, outspoken socialist worldview. The group started out in techno but morphed into something harder to pin down. Over the course of the Bay Area-based band\u2019s initial run, Consolidated explored funk and experimental sound collages; its main constants were guitarist, singer and frontman Adam Sherburne; an unfailingly socialist perspective; and a commitment to making challenging, defiantly non-commercial music.<\/p>\n

From 1988 to 2007, Consolidated would be sporadically active, releasing several EPs in the space of a few months, and then going quiet for several years. By 2007 it seemed that the group was no more. Sherburne had directed his energies into Free Music! Stop America!, a musical collective that sought to build on the concerns of Consolidated, including oppression, unchecked capitalism, gender equality, vegetarianism, free speech, and a general dismantling of corporate structures (especially in the music industry). He was also an active part of Occupy Portland.<\/p>\n

Bay Area-based producer-musician Mark Pistel had been a mainstay of Consolidated and a long-time Sherburne associate. Concurrent with his work in Consolidated, Pistel busied himself in various roles with Meat Beat Manifesto, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, MC 900 Feet Jesus, and others. When Consolidated seemingly went inactive circa 2007, he continued with production, engineering and mixing work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could see the collapse of the whole thing, at least on the recording end and the money end,\u201d Sherburne explains. He sought to distance himself from the machinery of the music business. \u201cI went into underground teaching\/learning on the street with Occupy, and other applications of music. Mark stayed in the game, continuing on with Meat Beat, a disco project called Hercules, and other remixing things.\u201d<\/p>\n

So it was something of a surprise when a new Consolidated album appeared in mid-March 2021. A sprawling, dense, and characteristically demanding double LP, We\u2019re Already There<\/i> signaled the return of Sherburne and Pistel\u2019s collaborative project. But the truth is that Sherburne and Pistel never really stopped working together. \u201cMark and I kept up this whole time,\u201d Sherburne says. Pistel \u201cwas just trying to make a go of it in whatever was left, and I was trying to develop a corrective or an alternative to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even before the pandemic made The Postal Service-style remote collaboration the norm, Sherburne and Pistel were exchanging audio files. \u201cWe essentially developed a new, dysfunctional musical marriage,\u201d Sherburne says. \u201cAnd that’s what this whole album is.\u201d Somewhat self-effacingly, Sherburne characterizes We\u2019re Already There<\/i> as \u201cMark sending me professionally recorded and programmed tracks, then me playing guitar or yelling into the iPad and sending back this lo-fi garbage, and then him trying to tart it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album is a sampler of the many moods of Consolidated; confrontational industrial beats coexist with the irresistible funk groove of \u201cRiffin on Jimi,\u201d the world music textures of \u201cMusic is the Sound of Life,\u201d the gauzy sound collage of \u201cThe ol\u2019 Mass Extinction Blues\u201d (featuring a sampled Greta Thunberg speech), and the Iberian delights within \u201cRobot Flamenco Shit.\u201d Sherburne says that compared to Consolidated\u2019s past work, We\u2019re Already There<\/i> features \u201cfar less topicality, more ambiguity and openness in the places where there are lyrics, and more instrumental jams.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Still, the band that brought you 1991\u2019s Friendly Fa$cism<\/i> hasn\u2019t softened its core messages. Just beneath the sultry, jazzy sheen of \u201cThe Chickens are Coming Home\u201d there is Sherburne \u2014 reminding us that \u201ccapitalism turns everybody into pimps, johns and hoes or some combination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sherburne stands behind his work on the new album, but readily admits where he feels it comes up short. Thanks to the isolation imposed upon everyone this last year-plus, he says that the one thing We\u2019re Already There<\/i> lacks is \u201cone thing that we all wanted it to have: commentary by the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

From its inception, central to Consolidated\u2019s street-level approach has been its insistence on breaking down the barriers between performer and audience; live Consolidated gigs had music, but at their core they were designed to function as a dialogue among all participants. That meant the mic got passed around. And if the revived group decides to tour \u2014 at present only two live dates are scheduled \u2014 concerts will maintain that approach.<\/p>\n

For most musicians, Sherburne says, touring bands \u201chave not been a going concern for over a quarter century.\u201d But he\u2019d nonetheless like to get out there and play some gigs. \u201cWe damn sure should try to go out and lay it on a new generation once, at least in a pretty spread out thing, have a discussion and maybe record that,\u201d he says. \u201cI’d love for us to get out and do all the big cities and some small towns, hand out the mic, have a good time and live it to the fullest.\u201d<\/p>\n

And collaborative multimedia is on Sherburne\u2019s radar as another way to connect with a like- and open-minded audience. In addition to recording and releasing more music, he\u2019s interested in \u201credirect[ing] my discussion with Mark from the way that you heard it on this album into something that’s more like what’s happened the last 20 years: cheap, fast-moving, little iPhone docs.\u201d His vision calls for anyone so inclined being able to upload their own music, or take part in live, realtime jams.<\/p>\n

Consolidated is back, and Adam Sherburne is thinking about its future. \u201cWhere we’re pointing now is the idea of: anything to break the chains of programmed life\/auto-tuned beat-based music and video,\u201d he says. \u201cJust point to openness, point to a re-imagining of what’s great about music and what’s great about not-programmed life and the messiness of mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s 1989 debut EP \u00a1Consolidated! <\/i>featured a track called \u201cHowie Livin\u2019.\u201d Built around a sample of 415 Records founder Howie Klein posing a rhetorical question, the track still works as a tidy encapsulation of at least part of the Consolidated philosophy: \u201cIf music is just inspired by a desire to make money, how interesting could it really be?\u201d With We\u2019re Already There<\/i>, Adam Sherburne and Mark Pistil continue on their journey of making interesting, provocative music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An edited version of this feature appeared previously in SF Weekly. Socialism is back. Though it was widely popular in the United States in the first half of the 20th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,41,49,53],"tags":[4552,4550,4551],"class_list":["post-21109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hip-hop","category-interview","category-new-release","category-post-punk","tag-adam-sherburne","tag-consolidated","tag-mark-pistel","cat-36-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-53-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21113,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21109\/revisions\/21113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}