News: Matt Chamberlain Happenings: Floratone and Sara Bareilles

One thing I’ve been meaning to post about, since seeing it mentioned on Matt Chamberlain’s MySpace, is Floratone, a collaboration between Matt, renowned guitarist Bill Frisell and producers Tucker Martine and Lee Townsend. Well, last week, Floratone’s recently released album was reviewed on National Public Radio and, as I listened to the spot while driving home from work, thought, “Self, there are gonna be a few mentions of this in the Undented mailbox tonight.” Sure enough, Richard Handal and SomaRiot proved me right.

Floratone is an intriguing project: the result of several days of free jamming by Matt and Bill back in 2005 followed by Tucker and Lee digging through the tapes to find and produce the 11-track album from the raw material that Matt and Bill laid down. Between the several songs streaming on the Floratone website and the NPR piece, curious parties can get a good idea of what the music sounds like. It’s all instrumental, but don’t let the lack of words keep you from checking out one of the, IMHO, more interesting releases of the year.

If you prefer music with words, Matt also worked on Little Voice, the latest album by singer-songwriter and pianist Sara Bareilles, which just happened to be produced by Eric Rosse. Thanks to Kate for that tidbit (and apologies for taking so long to mention it here) and Ryno for reminding me about Eric’s production credit, which I forgot to mention in last night’s adrenalin-powered update haze.