Odd that this 25-minute remix EP of three songs from bassist Bryan Beller’s 2008 album, Thanks in Advance, comes 17 later. But better late than never.
As the Bandcamp page for the bassist from The Aristocrats power trio explains, this collection “revisits and reimagines parts of his last solo album before both the birth of The Aristocrats and his seminal work Scenes From The Flood (2019).”
In fact, two of the songs on the EP -- “Greasy Wheel” and “Cave Dweller” -- also appeared on The Aristocrats’ first live record, 2012’s Boing, We’ll Do it Live! And the third track, “Love Terror Adrenaline/Breakthrough” features future Aristocrat Marco Minneman on drums. As they did when originally released, these songs help redefine modern jazz-fusion blurred with instrumental blues, rock and funk. All 2025 remixes are by Forrester Savell (Karnivool).
The EP also features performances by drummers Joe Travers (Zappa Plays Zappa, Eric Johnson) and Toss Panos (Michael Landau, Larry Carlton); guitarists Rick Musallam (Ben Taylor, Carly Simon) and Griff Peters (John Mayer, Billie Myers); and keyboardist Jeff Babko (Steely Dan, Sheryl Crow).
So why release this now? Again, Beller explains on Bandcamp: “In the very first gig with Guthrie Govan and Marco Minnemann at the NAMM show in 2011, we each brought two solo compositions for a six-song set. Those songs ended up on our 2012 live album, so lots of folks heard the live trio arrangements of those pieces. Meanwhile I was a very young and inexperienced producer back in 2008, and while I was proud of the studio versions of those tunes at the time, I recently thought, ‘Man, I’d like another crack at mixing those. I think there’s more there.’ Also, 2008 is a million years ago in today’s ‘forever now’ culture, and there’s probably people out there who don’t even know this stuff exists. So why not reintroduce it with a fresh take?”
Why not, indeed. Hardcore fans of Beller and The Aristocrats will want to hear this digital-only release, while the curious can consider it a solid teaser for previous work.
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