The ever-busy Tony Levin (yes, still touring with Peter Gabriel; yes, just back from touring with the new seven-member configuration of King Crimson; yes, recently released a stirring collaboration with his brother Pete Levin) has also jumpstarted the Stick Men this fall.
We caught up with Levin to discuss an on-going tour, keyed to the October 21, 2014, release of the two-disc Supercollider: An Anthology — and what’s ahead for the Stick Men, which features Tony Levin on the Chapman Stick, fellow King Crimson member Pat Mastelotto on drums and Markus Reuter, a touch guitarist and composer.
Levin says the goal is to take a quick look back, before charging determinedly ahead.
“It’s always a thrill playing with Markus and Pat, and the musical responsibilities I have with just three players is very different than with seven,” he tells us in an exclusive Something Else! Sitdown. “We’re doing something of a retrospective now, Stick Man having done many albums. We thought we’d have a new look at some of the pieces from the past — and we have a new double CD, called Supercollider, with a selection of pieces and second disc of live material.”
Highlights include the title track from 2010’s Soup, their take on Robert Fripp’s “Breathless” from 1979’s Exposure and “Horatio” from 2013’s superlative Deep, plus a new edit of “Sepia” and a new mix of “Abasalom” — from the 2011 EP that marked Reuter’s debut with Stick Men. The second disc features live improvisations from their American tour in support of Deep.
Up next, Levin promises, is new music — and, perhaps, some surprises along the way: “We’ll spend a lot of next year writing together, aiming at a major album release, and perhaps a new direction, late in 2015,” Levin says. “Markus has moved to Berlin, and I’ll be spending some time with him there to write and record, hoping we can get some of the flavor of that great artistic city in our new material.”
In addition to Levin Brothers, the new jazz recording with Pete Levin, Tony Levin also recently released an eye-popping improv project with Jordan Rudess and Marco Minnemann simply titled Levin Minnemann Rudess. Both are courtesy of Scott Schorr’s Lazy Bones Recordings.
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