Black Duck - Black Duck

23/06/23

Super-group Black Duck is comprised of Bill MacKay (Broken Things, Darts and Arrows, Esker), Charles Rumback (Colorist, Whirlpool) and Douglas McCombs (Tortoise, Pullman, Brokeback, Eleventh Dream Day).

Black Duck captures a band already deeply in tune with one another. The three-piece super-group each has a distinct musical voice that is instantly recognizable, yet blends seamlessly with one another - their time performing together, playing to the moment and reading each other and the spaces they’re in formed a fluency between the trio which allows them to follow each other down winding paths and short tangents alike.

Black Duck’s debut is a testament to that fluency, an expedition led by three veterans into alluring worlds bathed in myriad splendors. Black Duck is a gallery of sonic tapestries, unbound by any genre constraints. Black Duck redefines what two guitarists and a drummer can do, pieces move from breezy shuffles to stormy blues rumbles to gorgeous textural drones. Playing entirely improvised live sets for years helped develop the trio’s acute senses for one another, knowing precisely how to listen to the others and bolster whatever direction they move in.