Inner Ear Brigade - Dromology (2017)

Balancing breeziness with complexity, this ambitious Oakland, California-based avant-prog band led by Bill Wolter released its debut full-length, Rainbro, on AltrOck in 2012. Guitarist, composer, and Mills College music composition graduate Bill Wolter plays with various Bay Area bands, and formed this adventurous avant-prog outfit in Oakland, California around 2005. With a quartet lineup of guitar, keyboards, bass, and drums, Inner Ear Brigade self-released the four-song Belly Brain EP in the summer of 2005, citing such influences as Magma, Sun Ra, and Frank Zappa. With a change in bass players and the addition of a saxophonist, the band expanded to a quintet, remaining a five-piece until late in the decade, when Inner Ear Brigade grew even larger with vocalist Melody Ferris, saxophonist Ivor Holloway, and vibraphonist Ryder Shelly joining the band. Ferris, Holloway, and original keyboardist Max Stoffregen were among the seven musicians who joined Wolter for the recording of his ambitious ten-and-a-half-minute composition "25 Miles to Freedom" at San Francisco's Tiny Telephone studio in 2009. During summer of the following year, Inner Ear Brigade were back at Tiny Telephone in an even larger, ten-piece configuration to record more Wolter compositions – including a revisit of Belly Brain leadoff track "Knee" – for the band’s first full-length. Wolter, Ferris, and Holloway remained from the "25 Miles to Freedom" session, joined by Shelly making his first recorded appearance with the band as well as new members Pat Moran (bass), Nick Peck (keyboards), Doug Port (drums), David Shaff (trumpet), David Slusser (electronics and "Slussomatic"), and Andrew Vernon (keyboards). The 2009 and 2010 tracks recorded at Tiny Telephone were combined onto the Rainbro album, released by the Italian AltrOck album in early 2012. At the time of Rainbro's release, the Inner Ear Brigade website indicated that even more lineup changes had ensued, with the band now a seven-piece including Wolter, Ferris, Holloway, Vernon, and Shaff along with drummer Chris Lauf and bassist Stevo Wright. Other musicians heard on the group's EP and LP – and even some who haven't appeared on Inner Ear Brigade recordings to date – were deemed "honorary members and collaborators in evil sound science."

~ Dave Lynch, All Music