About

Mighty Vertebrate is the International Anthem debut from Adelaide, Australia-born bassist and composer Anna Butterss. They have steadily become a first-call for tour and studio work since moving to Los Angeles (after a stint in Bloomington, Indiana) in 2014. They’ve racked up credits with notables across the indie, jazz, and pop worlds alike – including Makaya McCraven, Phoebe Bridgers, Jason Isbell, Andrew Bird, and Daniel Villarreal – but their most notable contributions to the burgeoning West Coast creative music scene have been as a core member of both Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet and rising proto-trance supergroup SML, who Pitchfork says “represents the thrilling next phase of a vibrant L.A. community.”

Their first solo album, Activities, was similarly hailed by Pitchfork as "one of the most exciting, undersung jazz releases of 2022," but the improvise-edit-reconstruct method used on that record couldn’t be further from the foundation of Mighty Vertebrate, which began amid the very real challenge of threading solo work into the dense calendrical web of an in-demand collaborator. The music itself reflects that structure beautifully, with the material being tightly composed and melodically realized by Butterss well in advance of production concerns. They eventually migrated the operation to Chris Schlarb’s Long Beach hideaway BIG EGO to track a selection of full band material. With Schlarb at the controls they reconvene a group of trusted longtime collaborators to bring their compositions to fruition: Josh Johnson (sax), Gregory Uhlmann (guitar), and Ben Lumsdaine (drums, guitar, production).

Jeff Parker’s impact is hard to miss when discussing any forward-thinking, groove-oriented jazz and experimental music. Perhaps even more accurate in the case of Mighty Vertebrate is the influence of Tortoise, the long running post-genre group of which Parker is a member. Butterss’ “Pokemans” echoes the band’s excellent 2001 album 'Standards' as much as it does Four Tet or any of Junichi Masuda’s 8-bit school bus classics; but this is more than just inspiration, influence, or some detached version of a musical continuum. Butterss has played with Jeff Parker for years; Tortoise’s John Herndon did the cover art for Mighty Vertebrate; these artists exist within the same close-knit community. Here Butterss finds themself firmly in the protégé-to-peer pipeline. Ultimately, each track on Mighty Vertebrate could be excavated and studied or simply taken at face value. It’s a solid, mature, and endlessly fun glimpse into the world of an artist whose potential for growth is seemingly unlimited. — (via Label)

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Label: International Anthem Recording Company
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Released: 2024
Genre: Jazz, Modern / Future Jazz

File under: International Anthem Recording Company
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