BADBADNOTGOOD: The Mid Spiral Tour

BADBADNOTGOOD were brimming with creative energy. Having just come off a run of one-off international tour dates and a series of sessions for projects with artists Daniel Cesar, Charlotte Day Wilson, reggie, Baby Rose, Arthur Verocai, and Turnstile, the Canadian-trio of Al Sow, Chester Hansen and Leland Whitty were eager to get back into the studio to create.  The trio called on some of their closest friends and collaborators, BADBADNOTGOOD touring member Felix Fox-Pappas (keys) and a few key-players in the Toronto jazz scene including Kaelin Murphy (trumpet), Juan Carlos Medrano Magallenes (percussion) and LA musician Tyler Lott (guitar), for an intensive and productive one-week of recording at Valentine Studios in Los Angeles in February 2024. The result is the Mid Spiral suite: Chaos, Order and Growth.

The Mid Spiral suite exploits instrumental jazz at its core allowing for BADBADNOTGOOD to continue to push the boundaries of how they integrate a limitless range of genres and musicianship into their compositions. For the Valentine sessions, the trio invited additional musicians to provide more voices of instrumentation, resulting in a deeply collaborative and expansive new sound. As the trio sifted through the weeks’ worth of material, it was clear that three distinct moods emerged, a deeper reflection of where the musicians are within their own personal lives, along with the state of the wider world: Chaos, Order, and Growth. Since the release of their late-2021 acclaimed album, BADBADNOTGOOD has been steady at work. The alt-jazz ensemble also received their fifth GRAMMY nomination, this time for Best Remixed Recording for their remix of Turnstile’s “Alien Love Call,” taken from the New Heart Designs EP.

In January BADBADNOTGOOD released “Take What’s Given,” featuring emerging Houston vocalist, which followed a string of one-off singles with collaborators including Charlotte Day Wilson on “Sleeper,” 1999 WRITE THE FUTURE, Westside Gunn plus Conway The Machine on “MiNt cHoCoLaTe” and Jonah Yano on “ the ordinary is ordinary because it ordinarily repeats.” Further, BADBADNOTGOOD contributed to Daniel Caesar’s 2023 album Never Enough, worked with rising artist Elmiene on an edit of his single “Marking My Time” and contributed to the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense tribute album with a cover of “ This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” with Norah Jones.