Kassa Overall to Release 'Live At Third Man Records' LP in April

Drummer/producer/rapper Kassa Overall will release his Live At Third Man Records LP, recorded direct-to-acetate at Third Man Records Nashville's Blue Room venue on May 3, 2022. The album, which is comprised of compositions from his first two albums, Go Get Ice Cream and Listen to Jazz and I Think I'm Good, will be available on both vinyl and streaming services on April 19, 2024.

Kassa Overall's Live At Third Man Records features longtime collaborator trumpeter Theo Croker, the Detroit native Ian Finkelstein, a protegé of the late Geri Allen and Amp Fiddler; Haitian-Canadian percussionist Bendji Allonce, son of Kompa legend Herman Nau; and Tomoki Sanders (they/them), a multi-instrumentalist from Japan and New York whose father was the great Pharoah Sanders. This diverse group of talented musicians has toured together throughout the US and Europe since the fall of 2021.

“Cutting a record straight to acetate is an extreme experience,” said Kassa Overall. “No edits, no post-production. What you hear is what we gave. This record is a raw document of a crazy time and captures a feeling of urgency and excitement we had for the music in the middle of a cross-country tour.”

“Third Man feels privileged to work with such a unique talent as Kassa,” said Third Man Co-President Ben Blackwell. “In doing direct-to-disc recordings for almost 13 years now, it's forward-thinking, boundary-pushing artists like Kassa that keep it all fresh and exciting.”

Third Man Records' live direct-to-acetate recordings take place in the Blue Room in Nashville, TN and are cut exclusively on a 1955 Scully lathe that originally came from King Records in Cincinnati. Recorded live in one-shot, with no overdubs, no redo's, no starting-and-stopping, the process is truly of another time, rendered obsolete by the late 1950's and only available nowadays in TMR's locations in Detroit and Nashville.

ABOUT KASSA OVERALL:

Kassa Overall is a Grammy-nominated musician, emcee, singer, producer and drummer who melds avant-garde experimentation with hip-hop production techniques to tilt the nexus of jazz and rap in unmapped directions. His albums have been placed on many top 10 lists over the years including ones from the New York Times, NPR, Brooklyn Vegan, MOJO, and more.

On his first two studio albums GO GET ICE CREAM AND LISTEN TO JAZZ and I THINK I'M GOOD, Kassa layered virtuosic drumming, meticulous production techniques, and incisive lyricism to establish himself as a rhythmic innovator and visionary poet, using his voice to address the injustices of the carceral system, the pharmaceutical industry, and anti-black racism while wrangling with the perils of his own mental illness.

His most recent album, 2023's ANIMALS, was his Warp Records debut and saw Kassa pushing his kaleidoscopic, subversive vision further than ever before as layered Roland 808s pushed against avant-garde drumming in the vein of his mentors Elvin Jones and Billy Hart, the latter of whom he studied with at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. The album also found Kassa pushing his message further and is the sound of an artist aware of the cost of embodying one's natural self in the public eye, a deep reckoning with the two-sided truth that to perform one's freedom for an audience can mean succumbing to life inside a cage. 

Photo Credit: Dokk Savage