One of the great tragedies of the early days of punk was the death of Minutemen guitarist and vocalist D. Boon, who died in an automobile accident in 1985. Minutemen sounded like no one else in the scene; their intelligent lyrics and unusual musical approach set them apart from their contemporaries and set the stage for the wider inclusion of acts on their label SST Records, owned by Black Flag‘s Greg Ginn.

Boon’s bandmate and best friend, Mike Watt, although devastated, was able to move on and create an extraordinary musical career. He’s done stints as a bassist for Porno for Pyros and the Stooges, he has released his own solo albums, and founded groups, most notably fIREHOSE. His latest release is with the trio Three-Layer Cake. Their second album, Sounds the Color of Grounds, came out June 27 on Otherly Love.

Three-Layer Cake sees Watt joined by avant jazz ne’er-do-wells Brandon Seabrook on banjo and guitar and Mike Pride on drums and percussion. The music the trio creates is hard to pin down: free jazz, dub, funk, and punk rock subverted into something unrecognizable, a sound all the more fascinating for its elusiveness.

The opening track, “Deliverdance,” will immediately throw the unsuspecting listener for a loop. Pride starts with a Minutemen-style punk beat, accompanied by Watt’s distinctive bass playing. But if you’re unfamiliar with Seabrook, his manic banjo might be the biggest surprise. To add to the unpredictability, Watt throws spoken word into the mix, using a “semi-sonnet” form that is dedicated to another person from the SST scene, renowned artist (and Greg Ginn‘s brother) Raymond Pettibon. Overall, the tune moves from beat-driven sections to freer moments and back again while all the elements create a unique atmosphere.

“From Couplets to Corpuscles” and “The Hasta Cloth” follow. Both are instrumentals and emphasize the mood of the album. The former features Seabrook on a heavily processed, ethereal-sounding guitar, while the latter features the guitar jumping to the front with intense leads. Both include heavy, dubby bass from Watt. Pride is quite restrained on “From Couplets to Corpuscles,” but “The Hasta Cloth” is a bit funkier in an avant-garde sort of way, sounding like a deconstructed Bill Laswell track.

“What Was Cut From the Negative Space” also revels in dub experimentation, with Seabrook now alternating between acoustic explorations inspired by either John Fahey or Six Organs of Admittance (or maybe both), and that searing electric lead sound again. The song begins to unravel at the end, the musical ideas becoming more fragmented and being joined by less identifiable noises.

“Occluded Ostracized and Onanistic” and “Tchotchkes” continue to hint at the deconstruction of Laswell’s Material, weirder yet more organic and intimate than those ensembles. Meanwhile, the sonnets return on “The Part You Kept Art,” which feels like a track from one of those old William Burroughs spoken word albums, possibly soundtracked by Ray Gun Suitcase-era Pere Ubu.

“Lickspittle Splatter” closes the album, bringing in more free jazz elements. Pride and Watt dance around each other in a mostly meter-free whirlpool of sound. Seabrook spends most of the track bowing one of his guitars, before the banjo reappears near the end. The mood of the album is consistent throughout, no matter what the trio does, and this piece is no exception.

Watt has expressed in the past that he wants to make sure Three-Layer Cake is not seen in a similar light to the Minutemen and that is largely a fair request. Three-Layer Cake is a vastly different entity, although this group does lead one to fantasize about what the Minutemen might sound like today if they had been able to develop over the decades rather than be tragically cut short. However, other SST bands do come to mind. Greg Ginn‘s willingness to put out punk-jazz hybrids like Hotel X and Saccharine Trust while doing a little Process of Weeding Out himself all seems relevant here. At the end of the day, Sounds the Color of Grounds is unclassifiable even if it does nod to an artistic lineage. More importantly, it makes for a great listen, full of both unpredictable compositions and excellent performances.

— Todd Manning