After a handful of years of inactivity, Tim Barnes' beloved Quakebasket imprint relaunches with two astounding companion LPs - 'Lost Words' and 'Noumena' - comprising some of the most engrossing and incredible we've heard from Barnes - among the most celebrated percussionists in the American underground - to date. Conceived by regular collaborator and longtime friend, Ken (Bundy) Brown, following Barnes' heartbreaking health concerns that were diagnosed in 2021, this astounding body of work, traversing a dazzling array of musical approaches, enlists a truly mind-blowing collective of collaborators - Joshua Abrams, Oren Ambarchi, Ken Brown, John Dieterich, David Daniel, Darin Gray, David Grubbs, Glenn Kotche, Robert Carlos Lange, Alan Licht, Ro(b)//ert Lundberg, Douglas McCombs, Matt Mehlan, Rob Mazurek, Tara Jane O’Neil, Jim O’Rourke, Chad Taylor, Thollem, Britt Walford, and Mike Watt - culminating as two of the most striking and essential music we've encountered in a good long time!

There are shining lights in every scene: rare individuals whose sensitivity, touch, and generosity lead the way by their own example. Over the last three decades, within the realms of American independent and underground music, few have better fit this description than the percussionist Tim Barnes. Between solo efforts that forged a singular approach to the drums; his legendary work with Jim O’Rourke, Tower Recordings, MV & EE, Pullman, Silver Jews, Tony Conrad, Faust, Alan Licht, P.G. Six, Sonic Youth, Stereolab, Ken Vandermark, and Wilco, and others; his wizardry behind the scenes as a tireless engineer and producer; running the much beloved Louisville experimental venue, Dreamland; or his efforts via his Quakebasket imprint, Barnes has continuously bent his remarkable skills in support of his community, while displaying a rare sense of inspiring artistry on his own terms. Tragically, in 2021, Barnes was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 54. In response, his regular collaborator and longtime friend, Ken (Bundy) Brown, helped instigate an ongoing series of collaborative recordings between Barnes and members of his extended circle within the American and international underground.

First emerging within the indie rock scene in and around New York City during the 1990s as a member of bands like Ditch Croaker and Essex Green, Tim Barnes’ singular approach to the drums, notable for deploying the kit melodically and texturally, first captured widespread acclaim for his work on Silver Jews’ ‘American Water’ and Jim O'Rourke's seminal ‘Halfway to a Threeway’ and ‘Insignificance’. Bridging the New York avant-garde scene - working with free improvisers, wild experimentalists like Tony Conrad and Alan Licht, and visionary explorers like Tower Recordings - with his continuous work with bands like Sonic Youth and Stereolab, Barnes represents an embodied, crystalline image of the unexpected creative junctures that characterized the late 90s and early 2000s. Despite how busy he remained for decades as a musician alone, Barnes seemed to always up his own game and contribute more, working tirelessly as an engineer and producer, through his efforts via his Quakebasket imprint - initially launched to release archival recordings by Angus MacLise, alongside other drummers and percussionists - and his founding of the much beloved Louisville experimental venue, Dreamland, following his move to Kentucky. It’s little wonder why there’s so much love attached to him. He is intrinsically part of the connective tissue of the American scene and all of the spirit that underscores it.

‘Lost Worlds’ is the first of two LPs comprising an astounding body of recordings instigated by Barnes’ longtime friend and Pullman bandmate, Ken (Bundy) Brown, following his heartbreaking diagnosis in 2021. Drawing together an astounding cast of collaborators from the American underground with whom Barnes has worked over the years - Joshua Abrams, Oren Ambarchi, Ken Brown, John Dieterich, David Daniel, Darin Gray, David Grubbs, Glenn Kotche, Alan Licht, Ro(b)//ert Lundberg, Matt Mehlan, Rob Mazurek, Tara Jane O’Neil, Jim O’Rourke, and Britt Walford - the album’s incredible eight tracks are a tour de force that illuminate the percussionist’s incredible sense of touch and compositional vision. Within each piece, we encounter Barnes working within a series of rotating ensembles of various combinations, or duos in the case of ‘Warming Up’ with David Daniel and ‘Putting Socks on Centipedes’ with Oren Ambarchi. Writhing and guided at every step by Barnes’ astounding polyrhythmic sensibilities, augmented by a truly astounding cast of collaborators, ‘Lost Worlds’ unfurls as an immersive, hypnotic world of its own, driven by a profound sense of textural and tonal abstraction.

Displaying the towering heights of the truly visionary approach to creativity and experimental music that made the 90s and 2000s such an important period of music, while forging endlessly toward an unknown future and sense of possibility, ‘Lost Worlds’ is a record for which there are few equivalents in both its spirit and creative accomplishment. In simple language, it’s just overwhelmingly good and profoundly inspiring on numerous levels, at every turn.

The companion to ‘Lost Worlds’ and recorded over the same period with a similar (but occasionally different) cast of collaborators - Joshua Abrams, Oren Ambarchi, Ken Brown, John Dieterich, Darin Gray, Glenn Kotche, Robert Carlos Lange, Ro(b)//ert Lundberg, Douglas McCombs, Matt Mehlan, Rob Mazurek, Tara Jane O’Neil, Jim O’Rourke, Chad Taylor, Thollem, Britt Walford and Mike Watt - ‘Noumena’ opens itself wide by traversing a mind-warping expanse of creative approaches and styles. Further highlighting and drawing upon Tim Barnes’ incredible versatility and sensitivity, the album’s nine tracks unfurl as a diverse array of rhythmically driven abstract forms, at times manifesting as complex arrangements of electroacoustic space; hypnotic, groove-oriented movements; off kilter post-rock; and at others remarkably engaging expressions of left-field pop. In each instance, while each member of a respective ensemble brings a tangible sense of their own experiences and individual sensibilities, every song embodies a striking sense of unity where the sum is far greater than its parts.

Like its companion, ‘Noumena’ is an overwhelming immersion into the power of community and musical collaboration, taking huge steps toward centering Tim Barnes’ towering contribution to underground music in our minds for years to come. Even if this was the first we’d heard of him, the pure potency of this music would have that effect on its own.