Subdued, minimal, and with a counter-intuitive swing, Josh Abrams’ bass-playing blends seams across some of contemporary music’s most celebrated sound adventurers. He’s lent a groove or two to such indie-rock crooners as Sam Prekop, Will Oldham, and Papa ‘M’, and has been an unassuming yet vital fixture inside the Chicago improvised music scene, stoking the free-jazz flames alongside such luminaries as Fred Anderson, David Boykin, and Matana Roberts, Nicole Mitchell, Hamid Drake, Town and Country, one of his lower profile projects, has quietly been sewing their own harmonium, celeste, and bell funk into the lining of modern composition for four albums or so on Thrill Jockey, and too subtle to shout, theirs and Abrams’ goodness is perhaps catching the ear of too few.
Josh Abrams is a ubiquitous presence in the local scene and beyond, bringing energy, deep grooves, and a full-bodied But he's best known as a jazz musician, and for good reason--he’s one of the few cats on the free-music scene who doesn’t need a music stand in front of him to tackle standards at the drop of a hat. While Abrams usually hangs in the background, holding down the groove and helping others sound better, last year he released a compelling solo joint under the name Reminder for Eastern Developments, the label owned by Prefuse mainman Scott Herren. Abrams had previously made two albums under his own name for the elusive Spanish label Lucky Kitchen, but they were a more subdued mix of field recordings and acoustic tweakery.