“With this new album and this new batch of music, we're planting a flag to say that this version of the band has really come into its own,” Anderson explains. “A big part of what the sound of this band is is the willingness to explore complex emotions. That's something that we're not only comfortable with but that we've embraced from the beginning of the band.”
The title comes from a phrase that Anderson and King have used since the early days of the band – a mission statement to describe the wide range of territory they’ve always explored. Just as calling its predecessor The Bad Plus made a statement about continuity in the midst of change, finally branding an album with this long-held mantra declares that the reconfigured group has discovered ways to delve deeper and venture further.
Somewhat paradoxically, Complex Emotions strikes out in stunning new directions, often sounding radically different than anything The Bad Plus has done before, while at the same time maintaining the band’s vital and unmistakable identity. Credit that to all four members’ instinctual attraction to song form, the compelling immediacy of their collective improvisations, and, yes, their willingness to drill down into the full gamut of emotional complexity. That the band can veer into so much unexplored terrain yet still emerge sounding like The Bad Plus on Complex Emotions is a testament to their finely crafted identity and insistence on constantly evolving.
Since their debut in 2000, The Bad Plus have pushed the boundaries of what jazz music could and should be. From their earliest days, their indelible compositions coexisted with an unconventional array of covers from outside of the strictly-policed jazz bubble: everything from Ornette Coleman to Black Sabbath to Aphex Twin, Cole Porter to the Pixies to Nirvana. Their eclecticism was often misinterpreted as snark, when in actuality it was a means to reach for expression unachievable through other avenues – something very much in keeping with the dauntlessness of the true jazz tradition. Their now-legendary 2003 LP These Are Vistas was named one of the 50 Most Important Recordings of the Decade by NPR’s All Songs Considered, and now on their 16th studio album, the band is still making music that is wild and unexpected, with a refusal to conform to convention.
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