Heather Duby and Elemental
Heather Duby Elemental
release date: August 21, 2001

Heather Duby's follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut Post to Wire finds Heather collaborating once again with some familiar faces in Reggie Watts and Steve Fisk. Reggie and Heather previously performed together in local Seattle band, Clementine. After the dissolution of that group Reggie shifted his attention to improvisational techno soul group, Maktub, and Heather moved on to work with renowned producer and keyboard master, Steve Fisk (who has produced records by Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Nirvana and countless others, and performed in Pell Mell, the Halo Benders, Pigeonhed, and on his own).

In constant need of creative outlets, Reggie, along with fellow Maktub member, drummer Davis Martin, FCS North bass player, Josh Warren, avant garde saxophone and keyboard player Skerik, and turntablist, Skyler Gilmore (aka Diskyze) formed a rotating ensemble of improvisational musicians called Elemental, who began regularly performing on the Seattle underground club circuit. Constantly pushing the boundaries of improvised electronics, on stage Elemental conjures an eclectic lab experiment in sound mixing the roots of drum and bass, dub, breakbeat, and jazz. The first results of this innovative collaborative effort are found here.

Perhaps springing from the varied backgrounds of the cast compiled on this EP, each track seems to flow effortlessly into the next. The record begins with Steve Fisk providing a more beat-oriented version of Heather's organic songwriting style, laying a more traditional dance foundation for Heather's floating vocal lines in "What You Thought" (originally an outtake from the Post to Wire session) and then putting his inimitable mark on the newly penned "From Here to Gone." "Love You More" finds Heather and Elemental collaborating on one track with Reggie and company supplying a sultry breakbeat groove while Heather's ethereal vocals drift effortlessly above, moving seamlessly into a Diskyze-programmed dub instrumental, "Terrabyte." The final track, "Trillium," finds Elemental in full stride mixing drum and bass with Skerik's unsettling saxophone explosions and Reggie's sampled vocal lines.

Less an indicator of a natural progression deeper into the world of electronic music for Heather, rather Heather Duby Elemental documents her vocal and song-writing abilities in creating aural techno-scapes and marks the recording debut of Elemental. In the process, the record reveals intriguing new facets of Heather Duby, only hinted at on Post to Wire.