by David Wilikofsky
Although you may not recognize their name, Simone Schmidt is a musical lifer. They’ve played in numerous project over the years, from groups like One Hundred Dollars to The Highest Order to solo work under the name Fiver. The last Fiver album, 2017’s Audible Songs From Rockwood, was a set of fictional field recordings based on case files from Rockwood Asylum for the Criminally Insane between 1854 and 1881. For their latest project, Schmidt teamed up with fellow musicians Bianca Palmer, Nick Dourado, and Jeremy Costello, aka The Atlantic School of Spontaneous Composition. Mixing that trio’s improvisational chops with the sounds of country music, they’ve created a set of music that defies easy categorization and sounds like little else.
Fiver With The Atlantic School of Spontaneous Composition follows You Wanted Country Vol 1, a short collection of classic country covers the group released last year. While it largely hewed to a classic country sound, its more improvisatory moments hinted at the direction the band would take on their new album. It feels more apt to think of country music as a framework here; while the sound of a steel guitar or a honky tonk rhythm might flit by, the band’s relaxed improvisations take the music into territories far beyond the confines of any particular genre. Take opener “Yeah But Uhhh Hey”, whose loping rhythm slowly falls apart into gentle atonality, or “Paid In Pride”, which almost sounds like a stripped down disco track with a funky bass line. This is free music in every sense of the word, music that feels unbeholden to any preconceived notions of what it can or should be.
Schmidt has long been an activist and organizer in their community, but that work hasn’t ever been a subject of their music in the way it is on this album. As they explained in a recent interview, “I don’t really want to conflate my work putting out music with the collective work that I do. But lately I’ve thought why should I lie? This is just the situation we’re in.” The result is a set of songs that capture the inequitable realities of everyday life. “Sick Gladiola” describes the grim reality of a jobless L.A. resident who eats “bargain Trea tuna on saltines at evening / Tarot and ambien keep you believing“. “Yeah But Uhhh Hey” makes reference to the gig economy, each worker “one carrion, cold, only doing what it’s told cuz it’s for money.” “Leaning Hard (On My Peripheral Vision)” references the words of Martin Luther King Jr, expressing a disappointment in white moderates who prefer to complacently maintain the status quo (“a negative peace”) rather than pursue true justice for all.
What these musicians have created is improvisational music of the highest order, music where each part works in service of a greater whole. Its beauty and magic lies as much in lightly twinkling piano keys at the end of a song as Schmidt’s powerful voice and words. It’s the sound of a set of musicians building something unique together, and we should all be honored we have the chance to listen in.