Natural Information Society

Natural Information Society emerged as an improvisational, spiritually oriented collective founded by Chicago experimental music veteran and avant-garde jazz bassist/composer Joshua Abrams. Its mesmerizing aesthetic blends minimalist classical, Krautrock, drone, free jazz, and additional strands, while intimate shows deliver concentrated excitement. Abrams directs the ensemble on guimbri—the three-stringed North African bass lute—typically with a rotating cast of players.

Abrams issued Natural Information on Eremite in 2010, then the widely praised Represencing in 2012 featuring flutist Nicole Mitchell, guitarist Jeff Parker, and drummer Chad Taylor. Veteran avant jazz drummer/percussionist Hamid Drake joined the Society in 2015, participating in concerts and adding to the double-length Magnetoception. The initial three albums appeared under Abrams’ name, though the group performed live as Natural Information Society; its first release properly credited to the ensemble was the 2015 Drag City collaboration Automaginary with Chicago psych-drone outfit Bitchin Bajas. Eremite Records brought out Simultonality in 2017. That year, between tours, Abrams issued the solo Excavations 1 on Feeding Tube Records. The next year he joined drummer John Herndon and guitarist Jeff Parker behind visiting Norwegian saxophonist Kjetil Moster for the fully improvised Ran Do on Clean Feed.

In July 2019 Natural Information Society appeared at London’s Cafe OTO, where Evan Parker sat in on soprano saxophone. Abrams and Parker had first connected in the 1990s through shared admiration for John Coltrane. Although the group had performed with Parker once several years earlier, the 2019 set comprised a single seventy-five-minute improvisation centered on the dialogue between Parker’s horn and Jason Stein’s bass clarinet, recalling the spirit of Coltrane alongside Eric Dolphy. Engineer James Dunn and producer Michael Ehlers captured the uninterrupted concert, which Eremite released in April 2021 as Descension (Out of Our Constrictions).

Two years later, almost to the day, Since Time Is Gravity arrived featuring a newly expanded version of the ensemble. Its core lineup—Abrams (guimbri & bass), Alvarado (harmonium), Avery (drums), and Jason Stein (bass clarinet)—was augmented by Hamid Drake (conga, tabla, tar), Josh Berman and Ben Lamar Gay (cornets), Nick Mazzarella and Mai Sugimoto (alto saxophones & flute), Kara Bershad (harp), and Chicago’s iconic elder statesman of the tenor saxophone, Ari Brown. For the session the musicians billed themselves the Natural Information Society Community Ensemble with Ari Brown; the album was recorded live-to-tape at Electrical Audio and The Graham Foundation.