Reed Mathis & Electric Beethoven are one of the most unique groups to come out of 2016. The collective efforts of bassist Reed Mathis, keyboardist Todd Stoops, drummer Jay Lane, and guitarist Clay Welch create the foundation for the world’s first “Classical Dance Music” project. Reimagining Beethoven symphonies to a new generation of live music lovers, the band has been traveling the country to spread some serious musical explorations of the modernized material.
Today, they’ve shared something quite special. A song they call “Thunderstorm” is defined as a passage from the fourth movement of Beethoven’s sixth symphony, “tranced the funk out for a dance exploration and meditation improvisation.” What Reed Mathis has done with this recent Denver recording is even more interesting.
He explains in a Facebook post, “So, in my Beethoven band we have this one tune where it’s one long chord progression that we can move through at any pace we like, and we just make up riffs and ornaments through repetition, sort of like crickets talking. The recording of us doing this in Denver was 44 minutes long. ‘Just for the hell of it,’ I wondered, ‘what would happen if I remove the transitional bits, and just string together all the improvised riffs using only the parts where they had solidified?’ So, I spent a couple hours last night editing that 44 minute performance down to 21 minutes. Pretty crazy! Fascinating to hear our collective-improvised negotiations go from stepping-stone to stepping-stone so quickly. Plus, Beet’s chord progression is definitely non-shitty. Freakin’ unique little band I’ve got here.” Indeed!
Check out the 21 minute compilation of improvisational material from Reed Mathis & Electric Beethoven at Cervantes below: