Bleeding Vector and Stash Wyslouch

Bleeding Vector (Lorin Benedict and Eric Vogler)
Stash Wyslouch
Luggage Store Gallery
Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Stash Wyslouch occasionally bashes at the guitar in the way you would expect from someone who has never held a guitar. But seconds later, he replicates that same bashing. It’s precision insanity. Then he’ll follow it up with rapid-precision bluegrass picking. Like an express train, it’s all in your field of vision, then gone.

I knew none of this before stopping by the Luggage Store Gallery. My only hints came from the blurb in the calendar entry, which included an admiring quote from Billy Strings, a bluegrass band leader with jam-band tendencies. Not the name that usually comes up in jazz/improv circles.

Billy Strings was talking specifically about The Stash Band, a quartet that mixes meticulous bluegrass roots with the bent-mindedness of They Might Be Giants and Eugene Chadbourne. At the Luggage Store, Stash was playing solo, filling the space with his voice and guitar. Every other song was straight roots/bluegrass, starting with “I Ain’t Got My Walkin’ Shoes No More.” Every other other song was a twister like “Micro Rage Biomes Occupy the Cosmos,” so random and chopping — but full of repeatable intent.

Here’s a different performance of that one, less slashing than what I remember, and showing off Stash’s picking abilities.

I don’t want to make Stash sound like an amateur. He’s versed in music theory and oddball scales, as evidenced on his YouTube channel. That’s what makes his wackiness work. One song he played included a retelling of the melody using only harmonics. I found myself looking to other audience members to confirm that yes, this was goddamn impressive.

Stash was preceded by Bleeding Vector, the duo of Lorin Benedict (voice) and Eric Vogler (guitar), improvisers who wobble and spin near the axis of the jazz tradition. The performed one long piece, fluid and often dense, flipping through their own compositions and some established jazz pieces, including an interpretation of “Solar” which, they later told us, had one chord intentionally dropped.

Benedict and Vogler are two-thirds of The Holly Martins, whose 2010 album, no. no. yes. no., was similarly airy and lightly bopping, drenched in the light-touch velvet of Benedict’s voice and the spritely jump of Vogler’s guitar, aided by Kasey Knudsen on sax. Underneath the jazz sheen, you’ll find lots of angles and twists. It’s worth seeking out.