Premiere: Listen to Bassist Nick Dunston’s ‘S.S. Nemesis’ From Upcoming Debut ‘Atlantic Extraction’

News, First Listen, Nick Dunston, Amirtha Kidambi, Dave Douglas

By DownBeat I Oct. 17, 2019

Bassist Nick Dunston is set to issue his debut as a leader, *Atlantic Extraction,* Nov. 1 through Out of Your Head Records.
(Photo: Gaya Feldheim-Schorr)

Bassist Nick Dunston’s name just keeps cropping up.

If you didn’t catch him on Amirtha Kidambi’s release with Elder Ones, From Untruth, keep an eye out for the upcoming Dave Douglas recording, Engage, with his contributions.

The bassist, though, also is an ambitious bandleader and composer who’s writing can make his quintet sound like a massive ensemble, flits among dense and aggressive pieces (“Tattle Snake”), and breathy, spacious snatches of calm (“A Rolling Wave Of Nothing”) on his upcoming debut, Atlantic Extraction, due out Nov. 1. For “S.S. Nemesis,” an avant-leaning cut off that album premiering below, he reaches back through history to reassess the melody of a Stephen Foster work.

“I want to also think about the other definition of ‘extraction.’ ‘Oh! Susanna’ is a minstrel song, and the tradition of appropriating historical artifacts (sometimes racist ones), as a means of subverting, creating and thriving is something that Afrodiasporic people are all too familiar with,” Dunston wrote in an email. “All of this stems from a fundamental goal of my work, which is to establish a deeper connection with my ancestry and to contribute my own narrative to the continuum of that lineage, whether it be biological, social and/or artistic. ”

For more on Dunston’s work, visit his homepage. DB