LAKELY LIMITED: Mantis with Special Guest Aaron Hedenstrom

Lakely Limited is a series of live performances and special engagements at The Lakely, carefully chosen to create distinct nights of music, atmosphere, and connection. When you see this special designation, expect an experience that’s designed to be savored, and an event that’s worth planning for.

The first album from Mantis is a continuation of Scott Burton’s explorations of the intersections between composition and improvisation. The trio of Burton with Sean Carey on drums and Jeremy Boettcher on bass navigate sparse melodic frameworks filling them with life and bringing three individual voices to each tune. ‘If I Could See Heaven Without Dying’ was co-written by Burton and expat hiphop artist Jneiro Jarel and is based on a fingerstyle technique Burton stumbled on that emphasizes movement in the lower strings while leaving the higher ones open as a drone. The song was originally used to open Jarel’s ’After a Thousand Years’ album on Far Out Recordings, and here Carey and Boettcher bring groove and awareness of how to keep the song faithful while still adding their own touches. ‘GTO’ was written originally for Burton’s Richmond, Virginia based group ‘Glows in the Dark’ and was inspired by Warren Oates’ character in Monte Hellman’s film ‘Two Lane Blacktop’. ‘View’ first appeared as a simple guitar and synth recording on Burton’s bandcamp page, here rearranged as an open duration melody that leads to some of the more emotional highs on the album. Boettcher on bowed bass navigates the melody as Burton uses pedals to sample and build drama within the looped melody and Carey’s brushwork pushes the song higher and higher. The tunes ‘Fei Fei’ and ‘The Skyhawk’ were inspired by kung fu films and explore the idea of two independent time feels, with bass and drums locked in a groove and form and guitar in a different time and form floating on top. The title track ‘You Get Lost’ bookends the album with a further exploration of the low string fingerstyle technique and references the minimalism of Reich as the trio explores a repeated figure slowly breaking apart before gradually reforming.