Larval

Symphonic rock outfit Larval, signed to the Knitting Factory, passed through repeated membership shifts in its opening years yet grew steadily more unified and focused under the direction of lead guitarist and composer Bill Brovold. The group’s initial Detroit-area roster assembled in late 1996 around Brovold, Erik Gustafson of Blue Dog, and Beth Willusz on guitars, with Dean Western on bass, Will Osler on drums, violinist Mary Alice, and occasional contributions from saxophonist Johnny Evans. Their first recording appeared in 1997 on John Zorn’s Japanese imprint Avant. Soon afterward the lineup fractured when every member except Brovold departed; Gustafson rejoined Blue Dog while the remaining players launched the space-rock project Tars Tarkas. Brovold seized the chance to reshape Larval’s identity, steering the music away from its earlier noise-rock tendencies toward a densely textured classical-rock hybrid. He recruited fresh local players, several of them Ann Arbor-based and connected to the university’s music program. That revised ensemble was in place for the early-1998 release of the second album, 2, issued on New York’s Knitting Factory label and featuring violinists Mike Smith and Jocelyn Vari, cellist Megan Morrill, guitarists Brovold and Toby Summerfield, reedists Colin Stetson and Stuart Bogie, bassist Troy Gregory of Prong, and drummer Marco Smith. When Stetson and Bogie relocated to San Francisco with their jazz-rock quartet Transmission, another configuration emerged. It comprised bassist Josh Tillinghast, previously the drummer in Summerfield’s project Poignant Plecostomus, cellist Genevieve Padgett, and saxophonist Matt Bauder of the out-jazz trio explosion:cerebral. After Tillinghast and Bauder left, bassist Shumit DasGupta of the by-then-defunct Poignant Plecostomus and saxophonist Jason Shear, associated with Entropy Records, joined; violinist Mike Smith was succeeded by Kurt Zimmerman. These two later editions of the band appear on Bill Brovold’s Tzadik album Childish Delusions, issued in May 2000, and on Larval’s subsequent Knitting Factory release, also scheduled for 2000. The group played repeatedly at the Knitting Factory’s downtown venue as well as at festivals such as Ann Arbor’s Edgefest in 1997 and 1998—the latter edition with guest reedist Ned Rothenberg—and the Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival in 1999, sharing the bill with the Boredoms and the quartet of John Zorn, Fred Frith, Bill Laswell, and Dave Lombardo. A tour encompassing Norway and Scandinavia was planned for fall 2000.