“ET” FROM THEIR 2020 LP EDDIE IS TRANSFORMED INTO FOUR NEW, DISTINCT, SONICALLY-DIVERSE ITERATIONS, INCLUDING BASS FROM EARTH, WIND & FIRE LEGEND VERDINE WHITE
ET SUITE OUT MARCH 17 VIA ARTS & CRAFTS
HEAR THE BRILLIANTLY FUNKY NEW SINGLE “ET PART II: VENUS” FT. TERRELL MORRIS, KALLITECHNIS & TIKA THE CREATOR HERE
PRE-ORDER ET SUITE HERE
Photo Credit: Maya Fuhr // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Today, Canadian 8-piece soul-jazz collective Busty and the Bass announce their new EP, ET Suite, via Arts & Crafts. ET Suite reworks the track "ET" from their album Eddie released in August of last year, with the band transforming it into four new, distinct and sonically diverse iterations. The EP features the legendary Verdine White of Earth, Wind & Fire as well as afro-soul singer Pierre Kwenders, and a trio of artists from the band’s Montreal community: Terrell Morris, Kallitechnis, and Tika the Creator.
BUY / STREAM “ET II: VENUS” FEATURING TERRELL MORRIS, KALLITECHNIS, AND TIKA THE CREATOR HERE
ET Suite rethinks jazz improvisations in the era of Covid, pushing the limits of collaboration. Recorded entirely in isolation, each instrument was tracked independently during the fall of 2020. The 15-minute five-song ET Suite flows from the original psychedelic funk cut into a silky, smoothed out R&B rendition into an instrumental groove with a bassline courtesy of Verdine into the candle-lit afro-soul crooning of Pierre, all finally culminating in a wild free-jazz freak out. The EP showcases the group’s uncanny ability to seamlessly flow between genres, combining funk, jazz, and hip-hop into a sound that is as energetic as it is centering.
“Contrary to how we’ve recorded in the past, every single element of this song was recorded in isolation, including each instrument from the band,” says Chris Vincent (trombone). “There were lots of discussions and listening sessions but as far as the recording process, each instrument was recorded completely independently. There’s an element of this that actually plays into the themes of the music. The ET Suite is really a space traveling journey from one isolated planet / atmosphere to the next and that transportation to isolated spaces is exactly how the creative process worked.”
“The idea to create a suite for ET came to us on a sunny day in June in Parc Laurie,” says Louis Stein (guitar). “We wanted to flip the idea of a remix on its head and instead of just handing off stems to various producers to see what they’d come back with, we took the challenge into our own hands. We agreed to make a suite instead of a remix, extend the song into a 15 minute journey — taking the listeners through a completely new interpretation of the track where everything from the instrumentation to the verses were reimagined, while always falling back to the song’s original hook, a reminder of the suite’s origin. Within hours of that conversation Chris had a working skeleton going of what the suite could look like and the pieces starting to come together around it. We reached out to several artists we’d been wanting to work with for a while and despite the enthusiastic responses, getting in the studio together was not easy. Flashback to the day the pandemic hit: we were in LA with a studio session booked to record Verdine but the studio and our LA show that night were cancelled in the whirlwind of news that arrived that day. Months later, studios were still closed and our producer Neal Pogue, was instead forced to drive up to Verdine’s house and record his bass part from a mobile studio in a van.”
PRE-ORDER ET SUITE HERE
The octet of Nick Ferraro [vocals, alto sax], Evan Crofton a.k.a. Alistair Blu [vocals, keys, synths], Scott Bevins [trumpet], Chris Vincent [trombone], Louis Stein [guitar], Milo Johnson [bass], Eric Haynes [keys, piano], and Julian Trivers [drums] first burst onto the scene in early 2015, releasing a pair of EPs—GLAM [2015] and LIFT [2016]—before unveiling 2017’s full-length debut, Uncommon Good and in the time since have amassed over 30 MILLION streams worldwide. In addition to packing houses on headline tours, including recent SOLD OUT shows at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom and LA’s Troubadour, they graced the stages of international festivals such as Made in America, Osheaga, Pinkpop, Montreal International Jazz Festival, The Great Escape, Ottawa Bluesfest, and Rifflandia, playing alongside the likes of Radiohead, Anderson .Paak, and Lana Del Rey. Most recently, the band released their sophomore album Eddie in August 2020, garnering rave reviews from critics and fans alike.
PRAISE FOR BUSTY AND THE BASS
"An undeniable live performance and a sound that’s best described as a lovechild between jazz, hip-hop, and electro-soul." - Complex
"Some fresh beats along with a juicy melody and you’ve got yourself an aural feast at which a jazzy, funkalicious hip-hop-infused experience awaits you." - The Huffington Post
"...a collection of reflective compositions showcasing their marriage of jazz, hip-hop and electro-soul influences" - Jazziz on Eddie
“If we need to pick a song of the summer – consider Out of Love, a funky, bubbling slice of R&B that cools the edge like tonic does to gin” The Globe and Mail on “Out Of Love”
"The overall vibe is that of a basement make-out party with dim lights, smoke-filled air, and a pile of R&B based rock, funk and soul 45s endlessly dropping down on the automatic record changer. The album should be played at a lower volume than most." - PopMatters on Eddie
“...an album filled with expert musicianship.” - Erie Reader on Eddie
"Combining their love of funk, soul, hip-hop, gospel and dance, Busty and the Bass is one of the baddest in the land when it comes to delivering unified sounds for the masses." - Okayplayer
"...drips with gold, beaming a timeless warmth, innocence, reflection, and adventure on a summery feel-good jazz-funk electro-soul pop fusion." - Atwood Magazine on Eddie
“This Montreal-funk eight-piece pulls out all the stops on its guest-laden new album. It’s Cool.” The Vancouver Sun on Eddie
