When musicians from disparate genres come together, you never know what you might get. Guitarist Mike Baggetta has made his name as a jazz player in the Jim Hall/Kenny Burrell mode, drummer Jim Keltner is one of the supreme American rock and pop session players of the past fifty-odd years, and bassist Mike Watt helped redefine punk rock with the Minutemen and revitalize the Stooges. Genre designations aside, though, none of these players have ever shied away from experimentation or a challenge, which means their trio records, of which Everywhen We Go is the second, wander down roads outside of their listeners’ experiences.
The title track opens the album with reserved but insistent desert noir (given a freakier reboot as a download-only bonus track), while “Yank It Out” cranks up the distortion and discordance. “Fearmongers” meanders through some sort of avant-garde postjazzpunk, while “Not Enough of Time” floats through a haze of acidtronica. “Measure of a Life” relaxes into ringing balladry, while “Fake Break” adds multiple weaving guitar lines over a rubbery rhythm section for a tune that defies easy ID. Throughout the musicians sound at ease with and confident in their chemistry, making Everywhen We Go the same pleasure to hear as it undoubtedly was to make.
