I'm Not a Gun

May 24, 2006

I'm Not a Gun | We Think as Instruments |City Centre Offices | Japan

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There’s a song on the recent third release by I’m Not a Gun called “A Letter From the Past.” This would have been a good title for the entire album. Presumably in an effort to forestall reviews such as this one, its release information calls the duo “a project for which the worn-out post-Chicago metaphor never worked and will be officially buried by the remaining few, once they’re listened to this album.” Yet while listening to We Think as Instruments (and prior to reading the preceding blurb) I thought endlessly of Chicago post-rock bands. Hell, I even thought of Chicago post-rock bands I’ve been in. It’s not a metaphor, just a spot-on resemblance.

There have been many others who sailed into the mellow triangle between jazz, rock and electronica, where the tastefully modulated drums and sophisticated, enigmatic chord progressions found in John Tejada and Takeshi Nishimoto’s music ripple and swell. Tejada and Nishimoto sail these waters exquisitely. But whether they admit it or not, I’m Not a Gun capably plays within a tradition that’s a decade old at this point—make that almost four decades if we place post-rock within the jazz fusion/prog context in which it probably belongs.

We Think as Instruments will sound sweet in rotation with electronic-based artists like Nightmares on Wax, jazz-based groups such as Tied and Tickled Trio and Chicago post-rockers such as Sea and Cake. It not an mp3 folder I dig into so often any more, but I enjoy it when I do.

To break out of the archives, I'm Not a Gun will have to innovate rather than emulate. Here's hoping their next album is a letter from the future.